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THE ARMY 
BEHIND THE ARMY 



THE ARMY 
BEHIND THE ARMY 



BY 

MAJOR E. ALEXANDER POWELL 
U. S. A. 



ILLUSTRATED 



NEW YORK 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 

1919 



T1510 
I 



Copyright, 1919, by 
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 

Published September, 1919 



'J9 




D 



TO 

FIVE FRIENDS OF THE A. E. F. 

LIEUT.-COL. N. J. WILEY 

MAJOR HUGH B. ROWLAND 

MAJOR HAMILTON FISH, JR. 

LIEUT. WILFORD S. CONROW 

LIEUT. KINGDON GOULD 

IN MEMORY OF THE DAYS WE SPENT TOGETHER 
ON THE BANKS OF THE MARNE 



AN ACKNOWLEDGMENT 

For the interest they have shown and the assis- 
tance they have given me in the preparation of this 
book, I am indebted to many persons. Each chapter 
was written with the co-operation of the chief and 
subchiefs of the branch of the army with which it 
deals, and upon its completion it was by them care- 
fully read and revised. The statements and figures 
are as nearly accurate, therefore, as extreme care can 
make them. The Honorable Newton D. Baker, Secre- 
tary of War, authorized the writing of the book and 
issued orders that every facility was to be afforded 
me for obtaining the necessary material, and the 
Honorable Benedict Crowell, Assistant Secretary of 
War, who from the beginning took a Hvely personal 
interest in the work, placed at my disposal the great 
mass of material which he had collected for his Official 
Report. To Major-General William S. Seibert, Director 
of the Chemical Warfare Service, to Colonel William 
S. Walker, in command of Edge wood Arsenal, and to 
Colonel Bradley Dewey, in command of the Gas De- 
fense Division, I am particularly indebted, as it was 
due to their efforts that I was able to undertake the 
writing of the book. Major-General William M. Black, 
Chief of Engineers, Lieutenant-Colonel Chenoweth, 
and Major Evarts Tracy of the Corps of Engineers; 
Major-General C. T. Menoher, Director of Military 



viii AN ACKNOWLEDGMENT 

Aeronautics, Colonel S. M. Davis, Lieutenant-Colonel 
H. B. Hersey, and Major H. M. Hickam of the Air 
Service; Colonel James L. Walsh, to whose generosity 
I am indebted for much of the material relating to 
Army Ordnance, Colonel E. M. Shinkle and Major 
A. B. Quinton, Jr., of the Ordnance Department; 
Major-General George S. Squier, Chief Signal Officer 
of the Army, Brigadier-General C. McK. Saltzman 
and Lieutenant-Colonel Joseph 0. Mauborgne of the 
Signal Corps; Major-General M. W. Ireland, Surgeon- 
General, and Colonel M. A. De Laney of the Medical 
Corps; Brigadier-General Marlborough Churchill, Di- 
rector of Military Intelligence, Captain R. G. Martin, 
Captain A. R. Townsend, Captain H. M. Dargan, 
and Captain J. Stanley Moore, of the Mihtary In- 
telligence Division; Major-General Rogers, Quarter- 
master-General of the Army; Colonel I. C. Welborn, 
Director of the Tank Corps; Brigadier-General Drake, 
Director of the Motor Transport Corps; Captain W. 
K. Wheatley, Chief of the Historical Section of the 
Motor Transport Corps, and W. L. Pollard, Esq., 
Chief of the Historical Branch of Purchase and Storage, 
all showed me exceptional courtesy and afforded me 
every possible assistance. I welcome this opportunity 
to express to them my appreciation. To the Bulletin 
of the Spruce Production Division, published by the 
Loyal Legion of Loggers and Lumbermen, I am in- 
debted for a considerable portion of the account of 
spruce production in the Pacific Northwest. 

E. Alexander Powell. 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 



The Ears of the Army ^ i 

"ESSAYONS" 47 

The Gas-Makers • • • loi 

The "Q. M. C." 140 

Ordnance 197 

Fighters of the Sky 259 

"M. 1." 328 

"Treat 'em Rough" 409 

"Get There!" 424 

Menders of Men 437 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



The Burning of an Observation Balloon at Fort Sill, Okla- 
homa Frontispiece 

FACING PAGE 

Laying a Field Telegraph Line 8 

Signal- Corps Men Erecting a Field Telephone . . , , 8 

Signal- Corps Men at Work Repairing the Tangle of Copper 
Wires Which Link the Infantry in the Front-Line Trenches 

with the Guns 9 

Communication by Use of Panels 14 

A Member of the Signal Corps Sending Messages by Means 

of a Lamp 15 

Motion-Picture Operators of the Photographic Section of the 

Signal Corps Going into Action on a Tank .... 34 

An Officer of the Signal Corps Operating a Telephone at the 

Front 35 

New Type of Search-Light Used in the American Army . . 80 

Camouflaging a Divisional Headquarters in the Toul Sector 81 

Suits Known as Cagoules 94 

The Work of the Camouflage Corps 95 

Man and Horse Completely Protected Against Poisonous Gas 132 

Types of Gas Masks Used by American and European Armies 133 

1,500 Tons of Peach-Pits Used for the Manufacture of Char- 
coal for Use in Gas Masks 134 

Testing Respirators Outside the Gas Chamber . . . . 135 

Testing Gas Masks Inside the Gas Chamber 135 

Advancing Under Gas 138 

zl 



xii ILLUSTRATIONS 

FACING PAGE 

Training for Gas Warfare 139 

Cutting Their Way through Barbed-Wire Entanglements 

while Training with Gas Masks 139 

American Salvage Dump in France 192 

A Workroom in an American Salvage Depot in France . 192 

An American Delousing Station 193 

An American Laundry in Operation Near the Front . . 193 

A 16-Inch Howitzer 202 

A 16-Inch Howitzer on a Railway Mount 203 

A Scene in an American Arsenal 214 

Filling a Powder-Bag for a 16-Inch Gun 215 

An American 7S-mm. in Action 232 

The 37-mm. Gun in Action 233 

An American 75-mm. Field Gun, Tractor Mounted . . 234 

A 12-Inch Railway Gun in Operation 235 

A 12-Inch Seacoast Mortar on a Railway Mount .... 236 

6-Inch Seacoast Rifles Taken from Coast Fortifications and 

Mounted for Field Use in France 237 

John M. Browning, the Inventor of the Pistol, Rifle, and 

Machine Gun Which Bears His Name 242 

The Browning Heavy Machine Gun 242 

A Rifle Grenadier 243 

Bombing Practice 288 

Eggs of Death 288 

Pigeons Have Been Repeatedly Used with Success from Both 

Airplanes and Balloons 289 

The Eye in the Sky; an Airplane Camera in Operation . . 289 

Radio Telephone Apparatus in Operation on an Airplane . 300 

President Wilson Talking with an Aviator in the Clouds by 

Means of the Radio Telephone 300 



ILLUSTRATIONS xiii 

FACING PAGE 

A Range-Finder for Ascertaining the Altitude and Speed of 

Airplanes 301 "^ 

A Sentinel of the Skies 306 ■-' 

An American Observation Balloon Leaving Its "Bed" Be- 
hind the Western Front 3°7,. 

A Balloon Company Manoeuvring a Caquot from Winch 

Position to Its Bed 307 

An American Kite Balloon About to Ascend 310 *^ 

Planes in Battle Formation 311 :^- 

A Basket Parachute Drop 316 l- 

Balloonist Making a Parachute Jump from an Altitude of 

7,900 Feet 316 i> 

Training the Student Aviator 317 

The American Whippet Tank . . . 418 

The Mark V Tank 418 

A Squadron of Whippet Tanks Advancing in Battle Forma- 
tion 419 

A Squadron of Whippet Tanks Parked and Camouflaged to 

Conceal Them from Enemy Observation 419 ►- 

Mobile Machine-Shop Operating in a Village Under Shell Fire 434 (.- 

Supply of Motor Tires . 434 

A Motor-Car Wrecked Returning from the Front Lines . . 435 

Field-Hospital 454 

An Infectious Ward 454 

Clear, Filtered, Disinfected Water 455 

Water Station on the Western Front 455 



THE ARMY 
BEHIND THE ARMY 



THE EARS OF THE ARMY 

BEFORE the war made most Americans as con- 
versant with the functions of the various branches 
of the army as they are with the duties of the gardener 
and the cook, the work of the Signal Corps troops was 
popularly supposed to consist, in the main, of standing 
in full view of the enemy and frantically waving lit- 
tle red-and- white flags. Don't you remember those 
gaudily colored recruiting posters which depicted a 
slender youth in khaki standing on a parapet, a signal- 
flag in either outstretched hand, in superb defiance 
of the shells which were bursting all about him ? This 
popular and picturesque conception was still further 
fostered at the officers' training-camps, where the 
harassed candidates spent many unhappy hours at- 
tempting to master the technic of semaphore and wig- 
wag. Yet, as a matter of fact, during more than four 
years of war I do not recall ever having seen a soldier 
of any nation attempt to signal by means of flags, 
save, perhaps, in the back areas. Had such an attempt 
been made under battle conditions the signaler prob- 
ably would have provided, in the words of the poet, 
"more work for the undertaker, another little job for 
the casket-maker." 

By this I do not mean to imply that the changed 
conditions brought about by the Great War made 



2 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

the army signaler a good life-insurance risk. Far from 
it ! But they did have the effect of making him a trifle 
less dashing and picturesque. Instead of recklessly 
exposing himself on the parapet of a trench in order 
to dash-dot a message which the enemy could have 
read with the greatest ease, he dragged himself, foot 
by foot, across the steel-swept terrain, a mud-caked 
and disreputable figure, on his task of repairing the 
tangle of copper strands which linked the infantry- 
men in the front-line trenches with the eager guns; 
crouching in the meagre shelter afforded by a shell- 
hole, with receivers strapped to his ears, he sent his 
radio messages into space; carrying on his back a 
wicker hamper filled with pigeons, he went forward 
with the second wave of an attack; or, by means of a 
military edition of the dictaphone device so familiar 
to readers of detective stories, he eavesdropped on 
the enemy's strictly private conversations. Even 
though he had no opportunity to wave his little flags, 
the Signal Corps man never lacked for action and ex- 
citement. 

If the Air Service is, as it has frequently been 
termed, "the eyes of the army," then the Signal Corps 
constitutes the army's entire nerve-system. Under 
the conditions imposed by modern warfare, an army 
without aviators would be at least partially blind, but 
without signalers it would be bereft of touch, speech, 
and hearing. It is the business of the Signal Corps to 
operate and maintain all the various systems of mes- 
sage transmission — telegraphs, telephones, radios, 
buzzers, Fullerphones, flags, lamps, panels, heliographs, 



THE EARS OF THE ARMY ^ 

pyrotechnics, despatch-riders, pigeons, even dogs — 
which enable the Commander-in-Chief to keep in con- 
stant communication with the various units of his 
army and which permit of those units keeping in touch 
with each other. It was imperative that General 
Pershing should be able to pick up his telephone-receiver 
in his private car, sidetracked hundreds of miles away 
from the battle-front, perhaps, and talk, if he so de- 
sired, with a subaltern of infantry crouching in his 
dugout on the edge of No Man's Land. The Secretary 
of War, seated at his desk in Washington, must be 
enabled to talk to the commander of a camp on the 
Rio Grande or of a cantonment in the Far Northwest. 
Though every strand of wire leading to the advanced 
positions was cut by the periodic shell-storms, means 
had to be provided for the commanders of the troops 
holding those positions to call for artillery support, 
for reinforcements, for ammunition, or for food. It 
was essential to the proper working of the great war- 
machine that the chiefs of the Services of Supply at 
Tours should be in constant telegraphic and telephonic 
communication with the officers in charge of the un- 
loading of troops and supplies at Bordeaux and Mar- 
seilles, at Brest and St. Nazaire. It was vital that 
the Chief of Staff should be kept constantly informed 
of conditions at the various ports of embarkation. 
All this was made possible by the Signal Corps. But 
it was also necessary that these various conversations 
should be so safeguarded that there was no possibility 
of them being overheard by enemy spies. And the 
Signal Corps saw to that too. 



4 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

When Count von Bernstorff was handed his pass- 
ports in the spring of 191 7, the Signal Corps consisted 
of barely 50 officers and about 2,500 men. When, 
nineteen months later, the German delegates, stand- 
ing about a table in Marshal Foch's private car, sullenly 
affixed their signatures to the Armistice, the corps 
had grown to nearly 2,800 officers and upward of 53,000 
men. It comprised at the close of the war seventy- 
one field signal battalions, thirty-four telegraph bat- 
talions, twenty replacement and training battalions, 
and fifty-two service companies, together with several 
pigeon and army radio companies, a photographic sec- 
tion, and a meteorological section. 

Not many people are aware, I imagine, that nearly 
a third of the officers and men who wore on their collars 
the Httle crossed flags of the Signal Corps were recruited 
from the employees of the two great rival telephone 
systems of the United States — the Bell and the In- 
dependent. The former raised and sent to France 
twelve complete telegraph battaHons; the latter ten 
field signal battalions — to say nothing of the great 
number of experts, specialists, and telephone-girls who 
left the employ of those systems to embark on the 
Great Adventure. So you need not be surprised if, 
the next time your telephone gets out of order, your 
trouble caU is answered by a bronzed and wiry youth 
who wears in the buttonhole of his rather shabby coat 
the tricolored ribbon of the D. S. C. — won, perhaps, 
while keeping the communications open at Chateau- 
Thierry. And the operator who says, "Number, 
please," so sweetly, may have been — who knows? — one 



THE EARS OF THE ARMY 5 

of those alert young women in trim blue serge who sat 
before the switchboard at Great Headquarters and 
handled the messages of the Commander-in-Chief 
himself. 

For a number of years before the war it was recog- 
nized in Washington that should the United States 
ever become involved in a conflict with a first-class 
Power, the handful of officers and men who composed 
the personnel of the Signal Corps would be utterly 
incapable of handling, unaided, the enormous system 
of communications which is so essential to the success 
of a modern army. It was perfectly evident, more- 
over, that should the country suddenly find itself 
confronting an emergency, there would be no time to 
train officers and men in the highly technical require- 
ments of the Signal Corps. To insure the success of 
the great citizen armies which we would be compelled 
to raise with the utmost speed in case of war, it was 
essential that there should be available an adequate 
supply of men who were already thoroughly trained 
in the installation and operation of the two chief forms 
of military communication — telegraphs and telephones. 
And this trained personnel was at hand in the em- 
ployees of the great telephone and telegraph com- 
panies. It was not, however, until June, 1916, when 
Congress, tardily awakening to the imminent danger 
of sparks falling on our own roof from the great con- 
flagration in Europe, passed the National Defense 
Act, which authorized, among other things, the crea- 
tion of the Signal Officers' Reserve Corps and the Signal 
Enlisted Reserve Corps, that the way was opened for 



6 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

definite action. Shortly thereafter the Bell Telephone 
System was approached by the Signal Corps with the 
suggestion that a number of reserve Signal Corps units 
be recruited from its various subsidiary organizations. 
The suggestion met with the hearty approval of the 
Bell officials and the work of organization was turned 
over to the Bell's chief engineer, Mr. J. J. Carty, the 
foremost telephone expert in the world. In accordance 
with the plans drawn up by Mr. Carty, there were 
organized from the employees of the New York, New 
England, Pennsylvania, Chesapeake and Potomac, 
Central Union, Cincinnati, Northwestern, Southwest- 
ern, Southern, Mountain States, and Pacific telephone 
companies twelve reserve telegraph battalions. I 
might mention, in passing, that Mr. Carty was given 
a commission as major, was later promoted to colonel, 
was made chief of the telegraphs and telephones of 
the A. E. F., and for his invaluable work was awarded 
the Distinguished Service Medal. 

While the Bell System was devoting its efforts 
to the raising of the telegraph battaHons, the Chief 
Signal Officer of the Army asked the co-operation of 
the Bell's great rival, the United States Independent 
Telephone Association, in the organization of a num- 
ber of field signal battalions for front-line work. Mr. 
F. B. McKinnon, vice-president of the association^ 
assumed charge of the work and enthusiastically threw 
himself and all the agencies at his disposal into the 
business of recruiting, ten field battalions eventually 
being raised by the Independent System. 

But the demand for trained personnel from the 



THE EARS OF THE ARMY 7 

telegraph and telephone companies did not end with 
the formation of the units I have just mentioned. 
With the declaration of war and the despatch to France 
of the first American contingents, it was realized that 
their work had only begun. Though the telegraph 
and field battalions contained many experts on teleg- 
raphy and telephony, they were formed primarily as 
constructive and operative units for comparatively 
short lines. But the lines in the A. E. F. did not re- 
main short, and as they grew in length and in number, 
new equipment and different types of technicians had 
to be employed. In August, 191 7, there came from 
France the first call for specialists, to include telephone- 
repeater experts, printer-telegraph mechanicians, print- 
ing-telegraph traffic supervisors, and similar highly 
trained men. Almost at the same time there was re- 
ceived a cablegram from General Pershing requesting 
the immediate organization in Paris of a Research 
and Inspection Department, in order that the best, 
latest, and most reliable signal equipment might be 
assured for the American troops. To Colonel Carty 
was assigned the task of selecting the twelve scientists 
to be the officers of the new division and the fifty en- 
listed assistants who were necessary to commence the 
work. He found them in the remarkable Research 
Department of the Western Electric Company, which 
is closely allied with the Bell System, Mr. Herbert 
Shreeve of the Western Electric being given a com- 
mission as lieutenant-colonel and placed in charge 
of the work. The improvements made and the de- 
vices introduced by this division made the signal 



8 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

system of the A. E. F. one of the marvels of the war. 
So wide-spread and reliable were the American com- 
munications, and so efficient the American operators, 
that on more than one occasion Marshal Foch, during 
his tours of inspection along the battle-front, went 
many miles out of his way in order to use the Amer- 
ican wires for important conversations. But so rapid 
was the growth of the telegraph and telephone lines 
in France that hardly had one requisition for additional 
personnel been filled before another was received. Yet 
always the great systems of the United States answered 
the call, and this despite their crying need for such 
personnel at home, where war conditions had enor- 
mously increased their business, and the difficulty 
which they were experiencing in making replacements 
in their own forces. In fact, of the 2,800 officers com- 
missioned in the Signal Corps during the war, fully 
30 per cent had been trained with the telegraph and 
telephone systems, and the percentage of enlisted 
men was equally high. The response made by these 
great corporations to the nation's call constitutes, in- 
deed, one of the most gratifying incidents of the 
war. 

When the history of the great conflict comes to be 
written, the story of the achievements of the telegraph 
and field battalions of the Signal Corps will form one 
of its most fascinating chapters. Working under the 
most trying conditions, in a land with whose customs 
they were unfamiliar and whose language they did not 
understand, with equipment and material frequently 
improvised from whatever was at hand, they covered 




Photograph by Sifual Lurfis L' . .^. .1. 

LAYING A FIELD TELEGRAPH LINE. 
They established a standard of speed and efficiency. 




SIGNAL CORPS MEN ERECTING A FIELD TELEPHONE. 
Working under the most trying conditions, these men covered France with the network of wires. 



THE EARS OF THE ARMY 9 

France from the seaboard to the Rhine with the net- 
work of their wires; they made it as easy for Great 
Headquarters to communicate with a remote outpost 
in Alsace or the Argonne as it is for a brokerage house 
in Wall Street to communicate with the manager of its 
Chicago branch, and it established a standard of speed 
and efi&ciency which will make the French dissatisfied 
with their own services for years to come. Their work 
was, in the words of General Pershing, "a striking ex- 
ample of the wisdom of placing highly skilled technical 
men in the places where their experience and skill will 
count the most." 

Despite the unending stream of men which con- 
stantly flowed Europeward for work on the ''A. E. F. 
Tel. & Tel. Co.," as our military telegraphs and tele- 
phones were familiarly known, more were ever needed, 
and it was finally decided, though, I believe, with con- 
siderable reluctance on the part of certain old-fashioned 
officers in the War Department, to replace the men 
operators, wherever possible, with girls. Again the 
American systems were called upon, this time to furnish 
young women who possessed the necessary technical 
experience, and to give them a working knowledge of 
French. Imagine the furor of excitement that swept 
through every telephone-exchange in the country when 
it was learned that girls were wanted for service in the 
A. E. F ! Where was the red-blooded, adventure- 
loving American girl who could resist such a call? 
Soon the company officials as well as the Signal Corps 
itself were almost swamped by the flood of applications 
that poured in. Then the Signal Corps found itself 



lo THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

confronted by the necessity of educating the apphcants; 
to do this it had to operate a whole system of boarding- 
schools for girls. Such schools were established in 
New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, San Francisco, Jer- 
sey City, Atlantic City, and Lancaster, Pa., the can- 
didates for overseas duty being given intensive courses 
in miUtary telephony, French, and European geogra- 
phy, together with lectures on French manners and 
customs, and, I might add (this in a whisper), on their 
own behavior, particular emphasis being laid on the 
evils of flirting, impertinence, and gum-chewing. Up- 
ward of 200 girls were finally selected, provided with 
uniforms and overseas caps of nav}^ serge — which 
looked as though they might have been designed by 
the technical experts of the Signal Corps — and sent to 
France as full-fledged members of the A. E. F. No 
pupils at a fashionable girls' boarding-school were ever 
more strictly chaperoned. At Tours quarters were 
built for them on an island in the Loire, which was 
connected with the mainland by a narrow foot-bridge, 
the military police on duty at the end of the bridge 
only permitting the girls to "go ashore" when they 
were accompanied by a matron or were in pairs. Not- 
withstanding the strictness of the regulations under 
which they lived and worked, it was a girl's own fault 
if she came home unengaged. Though it goes without 
saying that the military authorities took every precau- 
tion against exposing the girls to danger, those who 
were on duty in towns near the front, such as Toul, on 
numerous occasions tasted the excitement of German 
air-raids, one of them being cited in army orders for 



THE EARS OF THE ARMY n 

remaining at her post and coolly continuing to operate 
her switchboard "whence all but she had fled." 

I always liked the true story of the telephone-girl 
who, upon her arrival at an American port of debarka- 
tion, informed the landing officer that she was a second 
lieutenant. 

"But why do you call yourself a second Heuten- 
ant ? " he inquired. " No commissions have been given 
to telephone-girls." 

"I don't see what that's got to do with it," she 
retorted, tossing her head. "I get more pay than a 
second lieutenant, and I've been of more use to the 
army than any second lieutenant that I know." 

In order to assess at their true worth the achieve- 
ments of the Signal Corps during the war, it is essential 
to realize the amazing number, variety, and magnitude 
of the tasks the corps was called upon to perform. 
The Signal Corps is a staff department charged with 
providing means of communication for the army, both 
at home and overseas. According to the present tables 
of organization, one field signal battalion is usually 
attached to each division, the telegraph battalions 
being used as corps or army troops. Generally speak- 
ing, the telegraph battalion maintains communications 
in the rear; the field battalion usually operates with 
the combat troops at the front. In addition to these 
troops, there are numerous special units, such as pigeon 
companies, radio companies, photographic and mete- 
orological sections, which are attached to corps, armies, 
or to General Headquarters. In France where hun- 
dreds of miles separated our base ports from our troops 



12 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

on the firing-line, there devolved upon the Signal Corps 
an enormous amount of work in the area known as 
the Services of Supply. The magnitude of the tele- 
graph and telephone systems in the S. 0. S. is illus- 
trated by the fact that when the Armistice was signed, 
the Signal Corps in France was operating 96,000 miles 
of circuits known as "long lines," with 282 telephone- 
exchanges, and a total of nearly 9,000 stations. The 
requirements for wire in the field were even greater. 
When our operations were at their height in the 
summer of 19 18, it was estimated that the Signal 
Corps would require 68,000 miles of "outpost wire" 
a month for use at the front in connecting telegraph 
and telephone systems. Outpost wire is, I ought to 
explain, a development of the war. It is composed 
of seven fine wires, four of them bronze and three of 
them of hard carbon steel, stranded together and 
coated first with rubber, then with cotton yarn, and 
finally paraffined. This wire is produced in six colors 
— red, yellow, green, brown, black, and gray — in order 
that it may readily be identified in the field, the red 
wire running, for example, to the artillery, the yellow 
to regimental headquarters, green to brigade head- 
quarters, and so on. The enormous amount of this 
wire required is explained by the fact that very little 
of it was saved, it being out of the question to pick it 
up during the hurry and excitement of an advance, 
while hundreds of miles of it were destroyed during the 
heavy bombardments which usually preceded an 
attack. 

Within the memory of many of us the size of com- 



THE EARS OF THE ARMY 13 

bat armies was largely determined by the efficiency and 
scope of their signal systems, it being essential that 
the forces in the field should be kept within a size 
which permitted of communication being maintained 
between all units by means of runners, riders, or visual 
signals. Those were the days when messengers, often 
chosen by lot, crawled through the enemy's lines at 
night in order to bring reinforcements to beleaguered 
garrisons; when stories of ambush and massacre or 
urgent appeals for ammunition and food were brought 
to headquarters by weary riders clinging to the manes 
of reeking ponies; or when, in the Indian country, cav- 
alry columns communicated with each other by means 
of heliograph messages flashed from mountain-top to 
mountain-top, or signal-fires curling slowly skyward. 

But all this changed with the introduction of the 
telegraph and the telephone, the communications of an 
army thereafter being limited only by the amount of 
its wire. A far greater change came, however, with 
the introduction of the radio or wireless, whose area 
of operations is limited only by the power of the send- 
ing apparatus. Now it should be kept in mind that 
each of the systems of military signalling which I have 
already enumerated — telegraphs, telephones, radios, 
panels, lamps, flags, pigeons, runners, dogs, and the 
rest — is an adjunct to the others — when one fails, 
another is employed to get the message through. If 
the wires of the field telegraph and telephone are cut 
by a barrage, the radio is employed; if a sheU knocks 
out the radio set, the message is intrusted to a pigeon; 
should the pigeon fail, a runner attempts to take it 



14 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

through; and if the runner is killed, the message can 
be communicated, either by means of rockets or by 
cloth panels spread upon the ground, to the aviators 
circling overhead. 

Despite the new methods of transmitting messages 
produced by the war, the telephone remains the back- 
bone of the military signal system. Though the porta- 
ble telephone instrument used by all front-line troops 
was manufactured in the United States for commercial 
purposes prior to the war, the switchboard in most 
general use by mobile troops was originally developed 
by the French, being the only telephone equipment 
used by the American forces which was not of Ameri- 
can design. This switchboard, which was built in 
units so that it could be expanded from four to twelve 
lines, was the "Central" of the front-line dugout, being 
so compact that it could be carried as part of the equip- 
ment of a soldier and quickly put into operation. For 
the use of the larger field units there was designed a 
camp switchboard, with provision for forty wires, 
which when in transit resembled a commercial travel- 
ler's sample-trunk. A third type of switchboard, for 
use at headquarters in the zone of combat, but where 
extreme portability was not essential, was designed in 
units, like a certain popular style of sectional bookcase, 
and could readily be increased to any size required. 
An important auxiliary to the field-telephone lines was 
the buzzerphone, an American device for use where 
extraordinary secrecy was imperative, it being impossi- 
ble for the German Listening-in Service to eavesdrop 
on messages sent by this method. 







A MEMBER OF THE SIGNAL LUkl'N nENUINu ME^nAGES BY MEANS OF 

A LAMP. 



THE EARS OF THE ARMY 15 

Prior to the war the ''lance-pole" was used exclu- 
sively by American troops in the field, as it permitted 
of rapid line construction and served its purpose ad- 
mirably in open warfare. The conditions prevailing in 
Europe made the use of this pole impracticable, how- 
ever, and where poles were used at all they consisted 
of very short stakes with special cross-arms, miniature 
copies, in fact, of the commercial equipment com- 
monly used in the United States. The enormous 
mileage of the trench-lines called for vast quantities of 
insulators, cross-arms, and other special fittings, in all 
of which there was great wastage, for though the in- 
struments used on the military lines usually had a 
certain degree of protection, the lines themselves were 
constantly exposed to artillery and airplane bombard- 
ment. 

A factor which greatly complicated the supply 
of the front-line forces with wire was the necessity 
for maintaining two-way or twisted-pair lines in order 
to avoid giving information to the enemy, for the de- 
tectors used in the German listening-posts were so 
highly developed that a telegraph or telephone mes- 
sage sent over a "grounded" or single-conductor line 
was to all intents and purposes sent direct to Berlin. 
This necessity for a double-conductor line relegated 
the old field-wire of open warfare to the scrap-heap, 
a long series of experiments being required to produce 
a twisted-pair wire which was light enough to permit 
of easy portability and rapid laying, strong enough 
to stand the strain of heavy traffic and shell-shock, 
and withal so well insulated that "leaks" to the ground 



i6 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

might not reveal to the enemy listeners-in facts in- 
tended to be strictly confidential. The enormous de- 
mands for all types of wire and cables which came 
both from the A. E. F. and from our allies necessitated 
the United States being combed for every foot of avail- 
able material and the speeding up of production until 
every wire-mill in America was working twenty-four 
hours a day. Yet, in spite of labor troubles, housing 
problems, and the difficulties of obtaining material 
and transportation, the wire-makers at home filled 
every requirement of the soldiers overseas. 

Of all the varied activities of the Signal Corps, 
none was more fascinating or mysterious in its opera- 
tion than the work of the Radio Intelligence Sections, 
particularly the so-called listening-stations, which, by 
means of supersensitive receiving and amplifying in- 
struments electrically connected with ground-plates 
placed as close as possible to the enemy positions, 
were enabled to overhear the ground-telegraph opera- 
tions of the Germans and the conversation leaking 
from defective or non-metallic telephone and telegraph 
circuits. This remarkable service, some of whose 
achievements would seem to the layman to verge 
on the miraculous, combined the discoveries of Ohm, 
Volta, and Galvani with the methods of LeCoq and 
Sherlock Holmes. These stations could, of course, 
operate successfully only under favorable conditions, 
the chief requisites being that the enemy's trenches 
should not be too far away and that the intervening 
terrain should be free of creeks, gullies, or other features 
which might sidetrack the currents which it was de- 



THE EARS OF THE ARMY 17 

sired to intercept. The listening-stations were usually 
situated in the second line of trenches, the ground- 
plates being placed about 300 yards apart. In order 
to obtain satisfactory results it was necessary that 
the ground-plates should be placed as close to the 
enemy as possible, the work of installing them, almost 
under the noses of the Huns, being one of the most 
hazardous duties which the signal troops were called 
upon to perform. The men operating the listening- 
stations had to remain on duty for a week at a time — 
a considerably longer tour of duty than was required, 
under ordinary conditions, of the infantrymen. They 
were expected to possess a fluent knowledge of German 
and to be able to both speak and understand it as well 
as they did English, though this requirement was not 
always fulfilled toward the end. They were thoroughly 
coached, moreover, in German military phrases and 
colloquialisms and had to be proficient in recording 
ground-telegraphy code, which, though slow, is ex- 
tremely difficult to master. It will be seen, therefore, 
that the Listening-in Service demanded of its operators 
continuous interest and constant vigilance, together 
with a sufficiently active imagination to enable them 
to piece together the broken or garbled fragments of 
messages which their instruments might pick up, and 
to deduce from these messages what the enemy was 
doing or what he intended to do. Listening-in was 
very far from being a one-sided game, however, for 
the Germans, who were thoroughly conversant with 
its possibilities and limitations, maintained a service 
which was nearly, if not fully, equal to our own. The 



i8 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

real superiority of our service lay, not in its equip- 
ment, but in the boyish enthusiasm of its personnel, 
many of whom were university undergraduates when 
the war began. With them the work never assumed 
the aspect of a daily task which had to be performed 
whether they liked it or not: they regarded it rather 
as a game, interesting, fascinating, exciting. The 
quickness with which they grasped the technicalities 
of the service was amazing. I knew of one case where 
a soldier of a Listening-in Section, wholly without 
previous experience in the work, overhearing a tele- 
phone conversation in the enemy's lines which in- 
dicated that the watches in that sector were being 
synchronized, deduced that a raid on the American 
trenches was being planned. He promptly acquainted 
the divisional intelligence ofhcer with his conclusions, 
and when the Germans launched their attack, expect- 
ing to take the verdamte Yankees completely by sur- 
prise, they were greeted by a burst of rifle and machine- 
gun fire which almost annihilated them. After the 
moving warfare began it was, of course, extremely 
difficult to maintain these listening-stations, but when 
the advance halted, even for a night, listening-stations 
were always established if conditions permitted. 

A far-fetched but, as it proved, entirely correct 
deduction was made by the operator of a listening- 
post whose curiosity was aroused by the sudden change 
in the nature of the conversation taking place over 
the enemy's lines, familiarity interspersed with pro- 
fanity abruptly giving way to studied politeness. From 
this he reasoned that a new division had moved in 



THE EARS OF THE ARMY 19 

during the night. Prisoners captured the next day 
verified his deduction. Just before the St. Mihiel 
offensive one of our operators noted that the telephone 
conversations between the enemy units opposite his 
station had almost ceased, presumably because a troop 
movement was in progress which they did not dare 
to discuss for fear of being overheard, the truth being 
that the Germans were quietly withdrawing. Though 
he had practically no conversation to guide him, this 
by no means discouraged the American listener, who, 
by comparing the intensity of the T. P. S. (telegraphie 
par sol) signals he overheard, deduced with amazing 
accuracy the movements of the retiring troops. In 
comparison with such feats of deduction, Sherlock 
Holmes's ability to deduce a stranger's occupation 
from the condition of his finger-nails or the soles of 
his boots seems absurdly commonplace, doesn't it? 

A youth in search of excitement beyond that 
usually provided by battle could always find it by 
joining the Listening-in Service. In March, 1918, 
the American troops holding a certain sector were 
suddenl}' ordered to retire to a second line of resistance, 
but through an oversight the orders for withdrawal 
were not passed on to the Signal Corps men who were 
operating the listening-stations out in front. Serenely 
unconscious, therefore, of the fact that their comrades 
had fallen back and that German raiding-parties were 
prowling all about them in the darkness, they remained 
at their post throughout the night. It was not until 
the American infantry reoccupied their original posi- 
tion in the morning that the men in the listening-station 



20 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

learned that for eight hours they had been the only 
occupants of the sector. 

While crawling over No Man's Land to repair a 
break in a line connecting his station with a ground- 
plate, a Signal Corps man discovered a wire leading 
straight toward the enemy's position. Being of an 
inquiring turn of mind, he followed it up on hands and 
knees until he actually penetrated the German trenches, 
where he made the interesting discovery that the 
enemy's listening-station had tapped the same ground 
which we were using. Needless to say, he lost no time 
in crawling back and changing his ground-plates. This 
feat was paralleled by a soldier who followed an Amer- 
ican raid into the German trenches, and, unobserved 
during the excitement, succeeded in attaching a wire 
to one of their ground-plates which was well within 
their lines, and, therefore, presumably in no danger 
of being tampered with. By this means he listened- 
in on the enemy's conversations for several days before 
his wire was discovered and cut. 

Though the work of the Radio -Intercept and 
Goniometric Direction-Finding stations lacked in 
some measure the danger connected with that of the 
ground listening-posts, it nevertheless provided many 
interesting incidents in the life of the Signal Corps 
man. The function of radio-intercept stations is, as 
their name implies, the interception of enemy radio 
messages. Goniometric stations are used, on the other 
hand, for locating enemy radio-stations, the work being 
carried on on much the same principles as flash-ranging, 
which I have described at some length in another chap- 



THE EARS OF THE ARMY 21 

ter. By placing a goniometer — an instrument for 
measuring angles — at each end of a base line of known 
length, it is a comparatively simple matter to ascertain 
the angle of direction of an enemy radio-station, and, 
by prolonging the lines of these angles until they inter- 
sect, the location of the station can be approximately 
determined. That done, the information was sent to 
the artillery, which proceeded to sweep the vicinity 
in which the radio-station was known to be with a 
hurricane of shell. So highly was this system of radio 
detection developed that, after the salient at St. Mihiel 
had been cleared of Germans, every radio-station which 
our Goniometric Service had located previous to the 
attack was verified, the greatest error in location being 
approximately 500 yards. In many cases some of 
the German wireless equipment was still in the dug- 
outs, and much interesting printed matter was picked 
up. This was the first corroboration of the effective- 
ness of our Radio Intelligence work. 

Just as the naturalists can reconstruct from a 
few bones a prehistoric monster which they have never 
seen, so the goniometric experts are able to gain an 
amazingly accurate idea of the organization of an army 
by locating its radio-stations, for the lines of radio 
communication which spread fan-wise from army 
headquarters form a sort of skeleton, as it were, of 
the army's organization, the location of the various 
stations and their distance from headquarters indicat- 
ing quite accurately the position of the corps, divisions, 
brigades, regiments, and battalions. This fact was, 
of course, as well known to the Germans as to our- 



22 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

selves, and consequently extraordinary precautions 
were taken to prevent the stations from being located. 
Such a system of communications is known in military 
parlance as a "net," that serving an army being called 
an "army net" and that of a corps a "corps net." 
Just before the American offensive was launched at 
St. Mihiel a false corps net was set up considerably 
to the east of the point selected for the attack, this 
net being operated in as close imitation as possible 
of the real thing. Thousands of faked messages were 
sent in code, precisely as though the movements of an 
army corps depended upon them, and, to add to the 
verisimilitude of the proceeding, they were strongly 
seasoned with the profane and violent English with 
which American radio operators are accustomed to in- 
terlard their conversations. The German goniometric 
operators promptly located this network of radio- 
stations, and as the messages which were being trans- 
mitted appeared to be perfectly genuine, they naturally 
concluded that they had discovered the unsuspected 
presence of an American army corps, whereupon 
the German High Command took steps to move its 
reserves to the area which apparently was threatened. 
There is no means of knowing how effective this in- 
genious stratagem really proved, but the best answer 
would seem to be the surprisingly slight resistance 
which we encountered at St. Mihiel. 

The operation of the mobile radio-stations which 
accompanied the smaller infantry units was always 
a most hazardous and trying business, requiring not 
only courage but a very high degree of resourcefulness 



THE EARS OF THE ARMY 23 

and self-possession. In one case that I know of a Signal 
Corps unit received orders to have a trench radio-station 
installed at a certain exposed point by a certain time. 
They followed their instructions to the letter, but 
when their instruments were set up and they were 
ready for business, they discovered, to their extreme 
annoyance, that the infantry which was scheduled 
to occupy the position had failed to materialize and 
that they and their radio set were well in advance of 
our lines. From their position in a shell-hole they 
called up the regimental commander, reported that 
they were located according to instructions, and in- 
quired what they were expected to do. Whereupon 
the infantry lost no time in moving up and occupying 
the position which, as the signalers mockingly as- 
serted, they had been holding for them. 

The exigencies of the Great War wrought many 
strange and startling transformations. Scientists who 
had devoted their entire lives to discovering methods 
for prolonging life turned their genius to finding new 
and effective ways of taking it; the tractor of the West- 
ern wheat-fields became the tank of the battle-fields 
in Flanders; the machinery and chemicals used for 
the manufacture of dyestuffs were converted to the 
manufacture of poisonous gases — and the dove be- 
came the army carrier-pigeon, bearing, instead of the 
olive-branch of peace, messages of battle. Though I 
find that many Americans seem to be under the im- 
pression that pigeons were unreliable and compara- 
tively little used, they were, as a matter of fact, the 
most trustworthy of all the systems of message trans- 



24 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

mission employed by the fighting armies. When every- 
thing else failed, when the wires of the field telegraph 
and telephone had been destroyed by the German 
shell-storms, when the radio installations had been 
demolished, when the runners had been killed and 
the aviators driven back by the air-barrages, it was 
the pigeons which took the messages through. The 
official accounts of their exploits read like the wildest 
fiction. Over 500 birds were used by our troops in 
the St. Mihiel offensive alone. Through the messages 
brought by pigeons, American Headquarters learned 
of the whereabout of Major Whittlesey and his "Lost 
Battalion." How trustworthy were these winged 
messengers is proved by the carefully kept records of 
the Allied Armies, which show that of the thousands 
of messages intrusted to pigeons during the four years 
of the war, 96 per cent were delivered. 

The use of pigeons as messengers is as old as re- 
corded history, the Chinese, Egyptians, Greeks, and 
Romans all having used birds for this purpose. Word 
of the victory at Waterloo was brought to England by 
pigeons, and pigeons carried from New York to Wash- 
ington the news that Napoleon had signed the treaty 
which added Louisiana to the Union. Among the old- 
est and most successful pigeon- trainers are the Bel- 
gians, many of the best flying strains used by the 
French, British, and American armies having been 
developed from Belgian stock. When the Hunnish 
hordes swept across Belgium, one of their first 
measures was to confiscate or kill all pigeons. For 
a Belgian to have in his possession a carrier-pigeon was 



THE EARS OF THE ARMY 25 

for him to risk a court martial and death before a 
firing-party. Many of the pigeons taken from the 
Belgians were sent back to Germany for breeding pur- 
poses, producing birds which served against their for- 
mer masters, but when the Americans established their 
watch on the Rhine, they ordered the immediate release 
of all pigeons in the area of occupation, thus giving 
thousands of feathered exiles a chance to fly back to 
their old homes in Flanders. 

The Carrier-Pigeon Service of the American Army 
is a part of the Signal Corps, being composed of officers 
and men who are expert pigeon breeders and handlers, 
and who have the ability to impart their knowledge to 
others. The pigeon section, which was organized 
shortly after our entry into the war, consisted of two 
companies with a personnel of 24 officers and about 
650 men. The birds used by the army are known to 
the fancier as "homers" and are really not carrier- 
pigeons at all, the latter being a large, ungainly show- 
bird that cannot fly a city block. But our allies per- 
sist in calling homers "carrier-pigeons," and our mili- 
tary authorities have adopted the term. The homer 
has all the qualities required of a military messenger. 
He is a strong, well-built, racy-looking bird, possessed 
of indomitable courage. His most characteristic trait 
is, of course, his remarkable ability to find his home 
when released at great distances from it. This power, 
which has been developed by scientific breeding to an 
almost uncanny degree, is the asset which makes the 
bird of enormous value to the army. Though scientists 
have attempted to explain the homing instinct, they 



26 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

have arrived at different and frequently contradictory 
conclusions, it being enough to know that it is an in- 
stinct with which all birds are endowed to a greater 
or less degree, and which has been developed in the 
homer to a stage where it is limited only by the bird's 
physical endurance. Nature has equipped the pigeon 
with numerous air-sacs adjoining the lungs, in which 
a reserve supply of warm air is carried and supplied 
to the lungs as needed during flight. Over the eye 
is a transparent lid, called a "blinder," which pro- 
tects the eye while in flight, and is at the same time 
transparent, thus providing a sort of natural goggle. 
Well- trained homers have frequently flown i,ooo and 
even 1,500 miles, while pigeon-fanciers think no more 
of a 500-mile flight than horsemen do of a mile trotted 
in 2:30. On clear days a homer pigeon will fly dis- 
tances up to 300 miles at a speed close to a mile 
a minute, though longer distances are usually covered 
at a somewhat lower rate of speed, the birds instinc- 
tively taking advantage of the favoring air-currents 
and increasing or decreasing their altitude in order 
to obtain the benefit of them. 

Long before the Great War it was discovered that 
pigeons would "home" to movable lofts as unerringly 
as to stationary ones, this being of great importance 
from the military point of view because it made it pos- 
sible to move the cotes up to within a few miles of the 
firing-line. It also made it comparatively easy to 
supply the advanced posts with fresh pigeons. It was 
found that a week or ten days was usually sufficient to 
acquaint the birds with the new location of the loft 



THE EARS OF THE ARMY 27 

and with the surrounding country, moves of twenty- 
five miles without the loss of any birds being not at all 
uncommon. Each of these mobile lofts was stocked 
with seventy-five young birds, six to eight weeks old, 
of the best pedigreed stock obtainable. Clasped about 
the leg of each bird was a seamless aluminum band 
bearing a serial number, the year of birth, and the let- 
ters "U. S. A." These bands are put on soon after 
birth and cannot be removed except by destroying 
them. As the birds had never been outside a loft, it 
was a comparatively easy matter to settle them in 
their new homes. Their early training was devoted to 
the development of their flying strength and stamina 
and to the habit of quick "trapping," by which is 
meant the entrance of the bird into the loft immedi- 
ately upon reaching it, a pigeon that alights on the 
ground or roosts on the roof of the loft being considered 
most imperfectly trained. They soon learn to trap 
without hesitation, a flock of seventy-five birds entering 
a loft in from ten to twenty seconds after pitching on 
the roof. To overcome the habit of loafing, birds are 
fed in the loft after alighting with their favorite grain. 
After a month or two of this preliminary training the 
birds are "tossed," to use the phraseology of the 
fancier, at increasing distances from the loft, so that 
by the time they are five or six months old they are 
flying from fifty to seventy-five miles with speed and 
certainty. They are then ready for service in the 
trenches. Not all, however, are assigned to the in- 
fantry. Every tank crew carries a complement of 
pigeons, men from the Pigeon Service are frequently 



28 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

attached to cavalry units, and birds have been used 
successfully from balloons and airplanes. The infan- 
tryman carries his pigeons in a light wicker hamper 
strapped to his back, each bird wearing a corselet made 
of crinoline stiffened with whalebone and with strings 
running to the sides of the basket, thus preventing it 
from being tossed about and injured. 

As long as the ordinary means of communication 
are working satisfactorily, birds are not used. But 
when a barrage is laid down and the telephone-wires 
are destroyed, resort is had to the pigeons. When an 
advance-party has pushed far ahead of the main force 
it, too, relies on this method of liaison. In short, when 
every other method of liaison has failed or is unavail- 
able, important messages are intrusted to the birds. 
The messages are written on fine tissue-paper, folded 
into a small wad, and inserted in the aluminum holder 
which is attached to the leg of each pigeon. The bird 
is then released, and in spite of the terrific din and 
confusion of battle, in spite of the enemy shotgun 
squads, composed of expert shots, whose duty it is to 
pick off carrier-pigeons, it wings its way through shell 
and gas barrages to its loft in the rear of the lines. I 
might mention in passing that though birds are fre- 
quently killed while in their baskets by exploding 
shells, and others die from long confinement without 
food or care in the trenches, those that survive become 
accustomed to the roar of cannon and never suffer 
from shell-shock. On reaching his loft the bird hur- 
ries into it through an opening which permits of entry 
but not of exit, the dropping back of the little door 



THE EARS OF THE ARMY 29 

ringing a bell which announces the arrival of a message 
from the front, whereupon eager hands strip the cylin- 
der from the leg of the bird, the message which it con- 
tains being relayed to headquarters by telephone or 
despatch-rider. 

The pigeons were not always fortunate enough, 
however, to pass through the battle .area unscathed, 
many birds having succeeded in reaching their lofts 
with their messages only to succumb to their wounds. 
During the offensive in the Argonne an American pigeon 
reached its loft with the leg to which the message was 
attached severed and dangling by the ligaments, the 
missile that severed the leg having also passed through 
the breast-bone. In spite of these injuries and the 
great loss of blood the heroic bird flew twenty-five miles 
with a message of vital importance. I am glad to say 
that the pigeon recovered and was recommended in 
due form for the D. S. C. An English bird was struck 
by a piece of shrapnel while homeward bound with a 
message. Both of its legs were broken and the alu- 
minum message-holder was embedded in the flesh by 
the force of the bullet. But its spirit never faltered. 
It struggled on and on, blood dripping from it in an 
ever-increasing stream, to fall dead at the feet of the 
loft attendants. Another bird was released from a 
seaplane which had fallen and was being shelled by a 
German destroyer. It rose quickly and circled once 
to get its bearings. Shots resounded from the deck 
of the destroyer, the bird stopped short in its flight, 
and a flurry of falling feathers told their tale, but, 
after a short fall, it recovered and valiantly struggled 



30 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

on. Within thirty minutes after its release three 
British destroyers, white waves curhng from their 
prows and clouds of smoke belching from their funnels, 
came racing toward the scene, whereupon the German 
turned and fled and the aviators were saved. With 
wings and body terribly lacerated the plucky bird had 
flown thirteen miles to a naval air-station and given 
the alarm. Here is another incident in which a feath- 
ered messenger played a hero's role. A detachment of 
French infantry was ordered to hold a certain strategic 
position at all costs, thereby affording their main body 
time to retire to another position. The Germans, real- 
izing that the stubborn little band of Frenchmen was 
balking them of their prey, launched attack after 
attack, until, borne down by sheer weight of numbers, 
the defenders were literally engulfed by the wave of 
men in gray. Just as all that remained of the detach- 
ment were making their last stand, a blood-stained 
pigeon fell exhausted in a French loft behind the lines. 
The message which it bore read: 

"The Boche are upon us. We are lost, but we 
have done good work. Have the artillery open on our 
position." 

Little has been said about the work of pigeons in 
this country. Over a hundred lofts were established 
at the various camps and cantonments, the thousands 
of birds which they housed proving of no inconsider- 
able value in the training of the troops for fighting 
overseas. Everywhere that they were used the birds 
showed a dependability which won for them the en- 
thusiastic admiration of all who were familiar with 
their work. Indomitable courage, a gameness which 



THE EARS OF THE ARMY 31 

ends only with death, and a burning love of home are 
among the qualities most cherished by Americans, and 
nothing possesses them to a greater degree than the 
army carrier-pigeon. 

Though the Belgians made extensive use of dogs 
for hauling machine-guns, and though the French 
used them to a certain extent for Haison work and the 
British for locating the wounded, they were not utilized 
by the American forces overseas. A considerable num- 
ber of dogs, most of them police-dogs and Airedales, 
were trained at the various camps and cantonments in 
this country, however, and had the war continued they 
would undoubtedly have proved of real service in cer- 
tain forms of work in France. The attitude of the 
American soldier toward the subject of dogs is best 
expressed by a story which I heard in France. An 
American officer, lost at night in No Man's Land, 
sought refuge in a shell-hole. He found, however, that 
it already had an occupant, an American doughboy — 
from his accent evidently a product of the Bowery — 
who, it appeared, was lost like himself. In the periodic 
bursts of light afforded by the star-shells the officer 
noticed that the man had strapped to his back what 
appeared to be a large basket. 

"What have you in there?" he inquired curiously. 

"Boids, cap'n, boids," the soldier answered in a 
hoarse whisper, adding disgustedly: "An' that ain't 
the woist of it, cap'n. I hear they's goin' to give us 
dawgs!" 

Though Americans have always been the greatest 
photographers in the world, the Yankee abroad being 



32 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

readily distinguishable by his ever-ready kodak, it is a 
rather surprising fact that it needed the World War to 
convince the American military authorities of the vital 
importance to the army of the camera. Upon our 
entry into the war, however, the War Department, fol- 
lowing the example of the European armies, established 
a photographic section, with a personnel of forty-odd 
officers and nearly 800 men, as a part of the Signal 
Corps. The duty of this section was to take pictures, 
both still and motion, of every phase of America's par- 
ticipation in the war, both on the fighting front in 
Europe and in the training-camps at home; for the in- 
formation of the intelligence officers of the A. E. F., 
for the guidance of the artillery, for purposes of in- 
struction in the schools and cantonments, for propa- 
ganda use at home and in foreign countries, and for 
illustrating the official history of the great conflict. 

The photographic section was divided into two 
branches, land and air, the latter being, perhaps, from 
a military standpoint, the more important of the two 
for the reason that airplanes were used primarily for 
reconnaissance work and were, when equipped with 
cameras, literally the eyes of the army. The airplane 
being the eye of the army, the camera may be said to 
have been the pupil of the eye. In order to provide 
the large and highly trained personnel required for 
this service, there was established at Rochester, New 
York, a School of Aerial Photography — the largest in 
the world — where candidates received, in addition to 
a thorough military training, a course of instruction in 
everything relating to modern photography, from the 



THE EARS OF THE ARMY 33 

manufacture of plates and films through the selection 
and use of lenses, shutters, and light-filters, to the 
printing of the picture itself. In addition to becoming 
familiar with these details of commercial photography, 
they were instructed in all the special phases of military 
photography, such as map-plotting, mosaics, enlarge- 
ments, and the study of topography from a negative 
made many thousands of feet in the air. As in that 
chapter dealing with the Air Service I have described 
in considerable detail the methods and instruments 
used in aerial photography, it is enough to say here 
that the aerial branch of our Photographic Service 
attained such a degree of efficiency that, in the closing 
months of the war, it became virtually impossible for 
the Germans to dig a dozen yards of new trench, to 
transfer a platoon, to change the position of a machine- 
gun, without being detected by the all-seeing eyes of 
our cameras. 

The mother school for land photography was 
located at Columbia University, in New York, where 
the students received the same thorough training which 
was given to the aerial operators at Rochester, with 
instruction in motion-picture photography added. 
The students at this school were the pick of the news- 
paper photographers and motion-picture operators of 
America. Among them were men who had "snapped" 
presidents and potentates, celebrities and notorieties, 
prize-fighters, reformers, murderers, prelates, politi- 
cians and statesmen, leaders of society, Society and 
near-society; who had "filmed" presidential inaugura- 
tions, Newport weddings, railway disasters, yacht- 



34 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

races, South Sea cannibals, Mexican revolutions, and 
Heaven knows what besides. Their courage and re- 
sourcefulness were precisely the qualities which were 
required of army photographers, for there was nowhere 
that they would not go, nothing that they would not 
do, and the more danger there was in their work the 
more it appealed to them. When a new type of gun 
was being fired for the first time and the gun crew 
took refuge in the bomb-proofs as a precaution against 
accident, the army movie-men moved their machines 
up close in the hope that if the gun exploded they 
would get a picture of the explosion. One of the Signal 
Corps operators, Captain Edward N. Cooper, with his 
assistant, Sergeant Adrian Duff, while attached to the 
Twenty-Sixth Division, crawled out into No Man's 
Land just before an attack was scheduled to take place, 
and, though exposed to both German and American 
fire, set up their machine in order that the people at 
home, seated comfortably in motion-picture theatres, 
might actually see the boys going "over the top." 
On another occasion this same young officer became 
separated from the troops to which he was attached 
and found himself under the fire of a German machine- 
gun, but in spite of the hail of bullets he stuck to 
his work, made his pictures, and returned to the Amer- 
ican lines herding in front of him a group of Germans 
whom he had captured single-handed at the point 
of an empty revolver. A camera-man whom the French 
Government detailed to accompany me along the 
Western Front in 191 6 was seriously wounded by a 
German shell just as we were leaving Verdun. His 




Photograph by Signal Corps, U.S.A. 
AN OFFICER OF THE SIGNAL CORPS OPERATING A TELEPHONE AT THE FRONT. 

This instrument was so compact that it could be carried as part of the equipment of a soldier and 
quickly put into operation. 



THE EARS OF THE ARMY 35 

assistant helped me to give first aid to his chief and 
then, though the road was being heavily bombarded, 
coolly set up his machine and turned the crank while 
the wounded man was being lifted into an ambulance. 
It is a striking commentary on the scepticism of Amer- 
ican audiences that, when I showed that picture in 
the United States, fully half of the people who saw it 
insisted that it had been faked. Another officer of 
the photographic section who, before our entry into 
the war, as the representative of a Chicago newspaper 
had accompanied the German Armies during the in- 
vasion of Poland, was present at the capture of War- 
saw. When the Kaiser reviewed the troops after his 
triumphal entry into the captured cit}^, the American 
pushed his way through the cordon of soldiers and 
police agents which surrounded the imperial motor- 
car, set up his machine within six feet of the astonished 
Emperor, and proceeded to take a "close-up" of the 
All Highest, who was so amused by the effrontery 
of the performance that he insisted on shaking the 
photographer's hand ! 

Motion-pictures were used in the training of 
troops far more generally than the public realized. A 
series of pictures taken at the MiHtary Academy at 
West Point and exhibited at every camp and canton- 
ment in the United States did more in a few hours 
to acquaint the troops with military etiquette and 
the evolutions of the squad, the platoon, and the com- 
pany than any number of drills and lectures could 
have done. "Animated drawings," as they are called 
— like those of Mutt and Jeff and the Katzenjammer 



36 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

Kids — were made under the direction of the Signal 
Corps for the purpose of famiharizing the men with 
the mechanism of the service rifle, the automatic pistol, 
and the various types of machine-guns. By running 
these pictures slowly, every stage of the operation 
of loading and firing was made clear, from the inser- 
tion of the cartridge into the clip or belt to the bullet 
leaving the muzzle. But the greatest value of the 
motion-picture, when all is said and done, was in keep- 
ing up the morale of the American people by combat- 
ing the insidious and undeniably clever propaganda 
which was carried on in this country by the Germans. 
Enemy agents spread reports that the drafted troops 
were being ill-treated in the camps, that they lived 
in wretched quarters, were poorly fed, and suffered 
from lack of proper clothing. To answer these charges 
a score of movie-men were despatched to the various 
camps, the pictures which they took and which were 
exhibited throughout the country showing the clean 
and comfortable barracks, the men seated at their 
bountiful and appetizing meals in the mess-halls, the 
football and baseball games, the camp theatres, and 
the other features of cantonment life, thus providing 
a convincing refutation of the German insinuations. 
Parents who had heard the widely circulated tales of 
the unsanitary and immoral conditions to which their 
boys were exposed in France could go to their local 
motion-picture houses and see for themselves the clean 
dormitories, the Y. M. C. A. and Knights of Columbus 
huts, the social gatherings, the splendidly equipped 
hospitals, incidents of life in the back areas and in 



THE EARS OF THE ARMY 37 

the trenches, and not infrequently the faces of their 
loved ones themselves, sun-bronzed and happy, wear- 
ing "the smile that won't come off." If the photo- 
graphic section of the army had accomplished nothing 
else, its existence would have been justified a thousand 
times over by the service which it performed in fight- 
ing the propaganda of the Hun and in bringing cheer 
and comfort to the parents, wives, and sweethearts 
whom the boys had left behind them. 

As a result of the researches and experiments 
which it carried on during the war, the Signal Corps 
has, in addition to its countless other achievements, 
produced several devices which are of such an astound- 
ing nature as to strain almost to the breaking-point 
the credulity of the layman. I am not permitting 
myself to indulge in the slightest exaggeration when I 
assert that these devices place in the hands of the 
United States weapons which would render this coun- 
try wellnigh invulnerable in the event of our ever be- 
coming involved in another war. But — and herein lies 
their greatest significance and interest — they are, be- 
yond all question, the most important inventions, so 
far as their effect on the peaceful interests of the na- 
tion are concerned, which have been produced since 
Morse invented the telegraph, Bell perfected the tele- 
phone, and Marconi amazed us with the wireless. 
Imagine the value of a device which permits of a con- 
versation being carried on between a person on the 
ground and an aviator in the clouds as easily as though 
they were seated opposite each other at a dinner- table ! 



38 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

Such is the radiotelephone, which I have described in 
detail in the chapter on the Air Service but which was 
suggested and brought to a state of perfection by of- 
ficers of the Signal Corps, Conceive, if you can, of 
another device which permits of nineteen separate and 
distinct telephone and telegraph messages being trans- 
mitted simultaneously over a single copper wire! 
Picture the advance in world-communication made 
possible by the discovery, made by General Squier, 
the Chief Signal Officer of the Army, that growing 
trees can be used as natural anteimas for both sending 
and receiving radio messages! And, as a climax to 
this amazing list of achievements, let your imagination 
attempt to grasp the military and commercial signif- 
icance of a device for the sending over telegraph wires 
or cables of cipher messages which, though they can 
defy any system of deciphering known to science, ap- 
pear in plain language at the other end! You may 
think, perhaps, that I am overenthusiastic; that I have 
used too many adjectives and exclamation-marks. 
But suppose that I tell you something about these 
inventions. Then, unless I am greatly mistaken, you 
will be guilty of adjectives and exclamations yourself. 
-- Owing to the difficulty of constructing in France 
enough telegraph and telephone lines to meet the con- 
stantly increasing requirements of the American Ex- 
peditionary Forces, as well as to relieve the great con- 
gestion which prevailed on all of the existing lines, 
the scientists of the Signal Corps turned their atten- 
tion early in the war to the possibility of sending 
several messages simultaneously over a single wire. 



I 



THE EARS OF THE ARMY 39 

Without entering into the details of the long series 
of experiments which were conducted by the Signal 
Corps, in conjunction with the American Telephone 
and Telegraph Company at Camp Alfred Vail, New 
Jersey, or attempting to describe in terms which would 
be intelligible to the non-technical reader the device 
which was finally perfected, it may be said that the 
result is accomplished through the application of radio, 
the wire serving as a guide for the radio currents and 
conducting them with a minimum of power and with 
a minimum of interference with other radio communi- 
cations. This device has now been brought to such 
a state of perfection that eight telegraph messages 
and eleven telephone messages can be carried over a 
single wire at the same time, the Morse messages being 
transmitted by means of the multiplex telegraph ap- 
paratus — a system which was discovered as early as 
1 9 10 and is now in general use by the large telegraph 
companies — while the telephone conversations are 
guided by wireless waves, which serve as carriers for 
the voice currents. By placing on ordinary telegraph- 
wires wireless waves of very short length or of very 
great frequency, officers of the Signal Corps have suc- 
cessfully conversed over a line from Washington to 
Baltimore which was being used at the same time for 
the transmission of duplex telegraph messages. Per- 
haps the most remarkable feature of the performance 
was its extreme simplicity, the feat being accomplished 
merely by placing on the line, through proper con- 
necting condensers, a pair of radiotelephone sets such 
as are used for communicating between ground-stations 



40 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

and airplanes. Whereas it was believed, until very 
recently, that it was impracticable to hold more than 
four wired-wireless conversations over one wire or 
one pair of wires, in addition to whatever ordinary 
telephone or telegraph conversation might be on that 
wire, the Signal Corps has now demonstrated that it 
is not only possible but entirely practicable to hold 
ten or more extra telephone conversations without 
their interfering with each other. Had this system 
been perfected while the war was in progress it would 
have meant that ten telephone and two or more tele- 
graph conversations could have been carried on simul- 
taneously with a point served only by a single wire. 
In other words, by the application of this system one 
wire will take the place of ten. 

Another phase of science uncovered by the Signal 
Corps which figuratively makes the mind of the lay- 
man stand still and gasp is the discovery, due to the 
experiments of the Chief Signal Officer, General Squier, 
that trees can be used as instruments in the receipt 
and transmission of electrical messages, both telegraph 
and telephone, both by wire and wireless. Think of 
it, my friends ! The commonplace tree possesses those 
very qualities that men have spent centuries of effort 
to embody in a frail spider's web of wire ! 

''From the moment an acorn is planted in fertile 
soil," to quote the words of General Squier himself, "it 
becomes a 'detector' and a 'receiver' of electromag- 
netic waves, and the marvellous properties of this re- 
ceiver, through agencies at present entirely unknown 
to us, are such as to vitalize the acorn and to produce 



THE EARS OF THE ARMY 41 

in time the giant oak. In the power of multiplying 
plant-cells it may, indeed, be called an incomparable 
'amplifier.' From this angle of view we may consider 
that trees have been pieces of electrical apparatus 
from their beginning, and with their manifold chains 
of living cells are absorbers, conductors, and radiators 
of the long electromagnetic waves as used in the radio 
art. For our present purpose we may consider, there- 
fore, a growing tree as a highly organized piece of liv- 
ing earth, to be used in the same manner as we now 
use the earth as a universal conductor for telephony 
and telegraphy and other electrical purposes." 

Not only have telephone conversations, in which 
the voice is transmitted just as clearly as by the ordi- 
nary metallic circuit telephone, been carried on from 
tree to tree, up to a distance of three miles, in the out- 
skirts of Washington, but while the war was still in 
progress the signal officers, using tree-tops as antennae, 
read messages from ships at sea, from aviators in the 
sky, and from the great radio-stations in South America 
and Europe. As a result of this discovery, the lofty 
and costly towers which are now used for the sending 
and receipt of radio messages will no longer be a neces- 
sity. All that will be necessary is to drive a spike in a 
tree, attach a wire to the spike, and run the wire to a 
radio apparatus, whereupon messages can be received 
and sent, the distance covered depending upon the 
power of the instrument. The tree telegraph has been 
dubbed by General Squier a "floragraph" and the tree 
telephone a "floraphone," while the messages trans- 
mitted over this arboreal system are to be known as 



42 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

"floragrams." Though this discovery will in all like- 
lihood result in an amazing expansion of the world's 
system of communication, and though it will give 
radio-towers, thousands of them, in fact, to every vil- 
lage and to every farm, it does not necessarily mean 
that every man who possesses a vine and fig-tree will 
be able to sit on his front porch and gossip with his 
neighbors. 

During the war the offices of the Chief Signal 
Officer were literally besieged by persons who claimed 
to have invented various systems of message trans- 
mission which could not be tapped, or which, if they 
were tapped, could not be understood. It was per- 
fectly well known to us, of course, that the German 
Listening-in Service, particularly in the front-line 
trenches, was well organized and extremely efficient, 
and that telephone and buzzer conversations held over 
our wires were frequently intercepted. It was known, 
moreover, that Germany had spies, both in France and 
the United States, whose sole duty it was to tap the 
governmental telephone and telegraph systems for the 
purpQse of obtaining military information. Scores of 
devices designed to secure the inviolability of the 
vitally important messages which were constantly 
passing over the wires were submitted to the Signal 
Corps. Anxious as they were to obtain a system of 
message transmission which could jeer at the efforts 
of the enemy's spies, the experts of the Signal Corps 
steadily maintained that such a thing did not exist, 
for, as they said with truth, if an instrument could be 
devised which could transmit and decode a message, 



THE EARS OF THE ARMY 43 

there was no reason why the Germans could not in 
time manufacture one like it, put it on the line, and 
thus obtain the information desired. 

One of the inventors who approached the Signal 
Corps asserted that, though he did not claim to have 
a device which would render a message indecipherable, 
he had a system which made it impossible for an enemy 
agent to tap the wire over which messages were being 
transmitted without the sender and receiver being in- 
stantly notified that some one was eavesdropping 
upon them, whereupon their conversation would, of 
course, cease. "Prove it to us," said the Signal Corps, 
and provided the inventor with an opportunity to 
demonstrate his system over a miniature line. With- 
out the slightest difficulty the military experts tapped 
the line and, with the aid of a stenographer, recorded 
every message which was sent over it, the quantity of 
energy which they withdrew for the purpose being so 
minute that the delicate detectors failed to record the 
fact that the line had been tampered with. 

Another system had as its basic principle the 
breaking up of the groups of Morse dots and dashes 
which represented the letters of the message, and rout- 
ing these mangled fragments over widely separated 
wires to the receiving-station, where they were automat- 
ically joined together again so as to form the message 
as originally sent. If, for example, it was desired to 
send from Hoboken to Washington the message " Trans- 
port Leviathan sails June twenty-fifth,^^ it was proposed 
to make use of two lines, one running, let us say, through 
Harrisburg, the other via Wilmington. The message 



44 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

sent over the Harrisburg wire would be broken up 
something after this fashion: "t-a-s-o-t-e-i-t-a-s-i-s-u-e- 
w-n-y-i-t," while the portion going by way of Wilming- 
ton would read: "r-n-p-r-1-v-a-h-n-a-l-j-n-t-e-t-f-f-h." 
To create still further confusion in the mind of any one 
who might succeed in intercepting one of these sets of 
fragments, it was proposed to superimpose a "camou- 
flage" message upon the disconnected letters, the char- 
acters of the camouflage message to occupy the spaces 
between the characters of the real message. By an 
exceedingly ingenious device, these apparently inex- 
tricably intermixed and unrelated letters were auto- 
matically sorted out at the receiving-station and pieced 
together, like a jigsaw puzzle, so that the message 
appeared precisely as it was sent. Going a step fur- 
ther, the inventors of this system proposed by the 
same means to install a system of telephone communi- 
cation whereby the spoken words would be broken up 
just as the Morse characters were divided, certain 
sounds in each word going over one wire and the re- 
maining sounds over another, to be joined together at 
the receiving-station into a perfectly intelligible con- 
versation. Here again a wholly separate and extrane- 
ous conversation was superimposed over the sounds 
proceeding by each route, so that were either of the 
lines tapped the listener-in would be rewarded for his 
pains by hearing a torrent of sound which would con- 
vince him that he was listening to a combination of 
Choctaw, Chinese, the ravings of John McCullough, 
and the symptoms of a severe cold. Notwithstanding 
the undeniable ingenuity of this system, the Signal 



THE EARS OF THE ARMY 45 

Corps experts demonstrated, to the unconcealed as- 
tonishment of the inventors, that they could overhear 
and understand these crazy-quilt conversations as 
readily as though they were being held across a 
dinner-table in plain English. 

Early in 19 18, however, the American Telephone 
and Telegraph Company, becoming interested in the 
solution of this apparently insoluble problem, produced 
a device whereby a message could be transmitted over 
a wire in such a form that it was absolutely indecipher- 
able to any one save the person for whom it was in- 
tended. As originally developed, this system was un- 
able to do all that was claimed for it, but, thanks to the 
co-operation of the Signal Corps, there was finally 
produced an electrical device which will transform an 
ordinary message into cipher, transmit it with absolute 
secrecy, and decode it at the other end — all at the rate 
of from forty to seventy words a minute. This may 
be said to be the only cipher in existence which is abso- 
lutely indecipherable and at the same time practicable. 
As universal peace is not yet within sight, even with 
the aid of a telescope, and as this invention would prove 
of incalculable value to the United States in the event 
of our again becoming involved in war, it is obviously 
out of the question to discuss the principle on which 
it is based, much less the details of its construction 
and operation. It is enough to say that this nation 
is now the possessor of a system of code transmission 
which can defy all the experts in the world, a message 
sent by its means being absolutely indecipherable to 
the inventor himself. 



46 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

Though before the signing of the Armistice this 
device was operating between several points in the 
United States with complete satisfaction, the apparatus 
could not be manufactured in time to permit of its use 
overseas before the end of the war. The engineers of 
the Signal Corps assert that this device will eventually 
be perfected to a degree of commercial practicability 
which will make it possible to transmit cipher messages 
over cables as well as land lines without the necessity 
of manual transmission and without the use of a re- 
corder. As the machine codes and decodes messages 
automatically, the large code-room forces which were 
used in Washington during the war, and which are 
employed by many of the great banking and commer- 
cial institutions, would no longer be required, thus 
doing away entirely with the labor at present involved 
in coding and decoding messages and cutting down the 
time required for their transmission by many hours. 



II 

^'ESSAYONS" 

IF, the next time you meet an officer of Engineers, 
you will observe his uniform closely, you will per- 
ceive that the buttons of his tunic, instead of being 
embossed with the arms of the United States, like all 
other branches of the service, bear a device consisting 
of an eagle, a castle, a rising sun, and the motto ^^ Es- 
say ons^ Like the bow of black velvet, called a 
"flash," which the Royal Welsh Fusiliers have sewn 
at the back of their collars to commemorate the fact 
that they were the last regiment in the British Army 
to wear the pigtail, so the buttons of the Engineers 
serve to remind their wearers that the famous organi- 
zation is as old as the nation, tracing its history back 
to the Corps of Artillerists and Engineers of the Con- 
tinental Army. 

" Essayons^' — "Let us try." One likes the quiet 
confidence of the motto. 

"Can you make roads for my guns through the 
swamps of the Wilderness?" asked Grant. 

"Let us try," replied the Engineers — and the 
roads were built. 

"Can you build docks for disembarking ten thou- 
sand men a day and railways to carry those men to 
the front?" asked Pershing. 

"Let us try," the Engineers responded — and al- 

47 



48 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

most overnight miles of docks and networks of rails 
appeared as though at the wave of a magician's wand. 

" Can you locate the enemy's guns by their sound ? 
Can you keep our troops supplied with water? Can 
you print maps ? Can you make dugouts ? Can you 
operate search-lights? Can you dredge harbors for 
the entrance of our transports ? Can you build high- 
ways and keep them in repair? Can you quarry the 
stone for those highways ? Can you cut a million feet 
of lumber a day? Can you design better types of 
armored cars, sound-detectors, mobile cranes, portable 
sawmills, listening apparatus, mapping cameras, steel 
bridges, barbed-wire entanglements, than any in exist- 
ence? And, if the necessity arises, can you fight?" 

^'Essayons," answered the Engineers — whereupon 
all these things were done. 

Whenever the army has had work to be done 
which no one else knew how to do, they have sent for 
the Engineers. Who designed, built, and operated 
our tanks before the organization of the Tank Corps? 
The Engineers. Who organized the Gas and Flame 
Regiment? The Engineers. The Camouflage Corps? 
The Engineers, of course. Who did the mining, quarry- 
ing, timber-cutting, well-driving, dock, bridge, road, 
railway, and camp building for our armies overseas? 
Again, the Engineers. Indeed, I doubt if any organi- 
zation of any army in the Great War can show such a 
record of varied activities and successful accomplish- 
ments as the Corps of Engineers. One can say of the 
American Engineer, as Kipling said of the British 
Marine : 



"ESSAYONS" 49 

"There isn't a job on the top o' the earth the beggar don't know 

nor do — 
You can leave 'im at night on a bald man's 'ead to paddle 'is 

own canoe; 

They think for 'emselves, an' they steal for 'emselves, an' they 

never ask what's to do, 
But they're camped an' fed, an' they're up an' fed, before our 

bugle's blew." 

The immense importance attached to the work of 
the Engineers is strikingly illustrated by the fact that, 
whereas the army was increased to 19K times its pre- 
war size, the enormous problems of field fortification, 
construction, and transportation, both with and be- 
hind the fighting forces, as well as the direction of 
many entirely new phases of warfare, necessitated an 
increase of the Corps of Engineers to 131K times its 
strength at the beginning of the war. Prior to July, 
1 91 6, the corps consisted of only three battalions, with 
a total strength of not over 1,900 men, but when the 
Armistice was signed there had been organized, or 
were in process of organization, 500 Engineer units, 
with a strength of some 312,000 men, or more than 
10 per cent of the entire army. 

Now it must be kept in mind that in the original 
corps of pre-war days the men were trained only as 
sappers and not in the countless speciaHst branches 
which were developed by the great conflict. The fim- 
damental use of sapper troops is, theoretically, at least, 
the supervision of technical work during tactical opera- 
tions. One regiment of sappers is normally assigned 
to each division, is under the immediate command of 



50 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

the divisional commander, and operates as directed 
by him. To this regiment is given the work of organ- 
izing positions for defense, which includes the con- 
struction of trenches, gun-positions, ammunition- 
dumps, and dugouts, the repair and maintenance of 
roads in the divisional area, the construction of shelters 
where required, and the general direction of the work 
necessary to keep open the lines of communication 
and supply. In open warfare it is customary for the 
divisional commander to hold his sapper regiment 
in reserve to be used for applying the decisive pressure 
or resistance at the moment when it is most needed. 
When going forward with the infantry, sapper troops 
usually have a definite technical mission, such as the 
organization of captured ground, the destruction of 
obstacles and the bridging of streams. During a re- 
treat they are attached to the rear-guard, being charged 
with the demolition of bridges, the obstruction of roads, 
and the cutting of railway communications. Though 
the ranks of the Engineers were filled, for the most 
part, with men who were experts and specialists in 
certain trades and professions, they were time after 
time thrown into the line as combat troops, fighting 
shoulder to shoulder with the infantry. On more than 
one occasion they showed that, destitute of combat 
training though many of them were, they could handle 
a rifle or a machine-gun as well as an axe or a spade. 
At Cambrai the nth (railway) Engineers, caught in 
the German counter-push, offered a stubborn and 
heroic resistance against overwhelming numbers. At 
Amiens another railway regiment, the nth Engineers, 



''ESSAYONS" 51 

formed a part of the little force with which General 
Sandeman Carey blocked the gap in the British line 
and thereby prevented the Germans from breaking 
through to the Channel ports. For its behavior on 
that occasion the regiment was cited by the British 
and its commander was decorated. Perhaps you were 
not aware that two companies of Engineers fought 
alongside the Marines in the Bois de Belleau. And, 
when the gray hordes of Hindenburg were reeling back 
from the Marne, a report from the Rainbow Division 
ended: "Our advance troops, the 117th Engineers, 
are pressing the enemy closely." But the story that 
will live longest in the annals of the famous corps is 
that of the sergeant of the railway regiment at Cam- 
brai, who, surrounded by the enemy, refused to sur- 
render and defended himself with his only weapon, a 
crowbar. When they found him, hours later, the crow- 
bar was still clutched in his dead hand. About him, 
with crushed skulls, lay seven Germans. 

The innumerable new devices produced by the 
Great War, however, required for their operation great 
numbers of specially trained men, so that the Corps of 
Engineers, from an organization consisting solely of 
sapper troops, found itself called upon to do more and 
more work in almost every branch of engineering. To 
meet these demands men were accordingly trained as 
specialists and assigned to specialist regiments and 
battalions, so that, when the war ended, the Corps of 
Engineers consisted of camouflage, car-repair, crane- 
operator, dock-construction, dredging, electrical and 
mechanical, forestry, general-construction, highway. 



52 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

inland-waterway, light-railway construction, shop, and 
operation, locomotive-repair, military-mapping, min- 
ing, pontoon park and train, quarry, railway-trans- 
portation, road, sapper, search-light (including anti- 
aircraft), sound -and -flash -ranging, standard -gauge 
railway-construction, operation, shop and maintenance- 
of-way, supply, surveying and printing, trades and 
storekeepers, transportation and water-supply troops, 
organized as needed into companies, battalions, or 
regiments. 

Now it was realized, from the very beginning, that 
the success of our armies in France would depend upon 
transportation. And, thanks to the threats of Pancho 
Villa, we had at least the framework of a transporta- 
tion organization, for when it became necessary to 
send troops to the Mexican border in 191 6, the War 
Department had organized a transportation service of 
sorts and had placed Samuel M. Felton, president of 
the Chicago Great Western Railway, at the head of it. 
Thus it came about that upon our entrance into the 
Great War there devolved upon Mr. Felton and his 
staff the gigantic task of obtaining in the United States 
and shipping to Europe the enormous quantity of 
transportation equipment and supplies required for 
the use of our forces overseas. In order to ascertain 
just what was required in equipment and supplies, a 
commission, headed by Colonel William Barclay Par- 
sons, president of the American Society of Civil En- 
gineers, and Colonel (then Major) W. J. Wilgus, for- 
merly vice-president of the New York Central system, 
was sent to Europe within less than thirty days after 



"ESSAYONS" 53 

the declaration of war. Upon the completion of its 
prehminary survey of the situation the commission 
dispersed, leaving Colonel Wilgus as the sole nucleus 
of the American Transportation Service in France, 
with Captain L. A. Jenney, formerly chief draftsman 
of the New York Central, as his assistant. Sitting 
on soap-boxes in an ofifice in the Boulevard Haussman 
in Paris, with packing-cases for desks, these two officers 
outlined the general policy with respect to military 
transportation for the A. E. F. which the conditions 
seemed to warrant, and which General Pershing later 
adopted, and drew up the first requisition for railway 
and port equipment, materials, and tools. Colonel 
Wilgus, himself a veteran railroad man, quickly real- 
ized the vastness of the problem which confronted 
us and the gravity of the situation resulting from the 
dilapidated condition of the French railways and 
the appalling shortage of French rolling-stock. He 
accordingly informed the War Department that the 
American Army must prepare to operate its own 
trains, made up of its own locomotives and cars, from 
the seaports to the front, over the French railways 
under trackage rights. I might add that the principle 
of trackage rights, so familiar in America, was entirely 
unknown in France, and at first the French railway 
officials did not know what Colonel Wilgus was talking 
about, for they found it difficult to understand how it 
was possible to operate two systems of transportation 
over the same tracks at the same time. 

The story of how the Engineers, under the direc- 
tion of Brigadier-General W. W. Atterbury, formerly 



54 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

vice-president of the Pennsylvania, Director-General of 
Transportation, with Colonel Wilgus as his deputy 
and Chief of Staff, built up in France a transportation 
system which was one of the marvels of the war, is 
outside the province of this narrative, while the story 
of the production of railway material in America and 
its shipment overseas would require, for its proper tell- 
ing, a chapter to itself. It is enough to say that, when 
the Armistice was signed, 60,000 men were engaged on 
railroad work of various kinds in France; more than a 
thousand miles of standard-gauge railway (equal to the 
distance by the Pennsylvania from New York to Chi- 
cago) had been laid; upward of 1,300 locomotives (300 
more than are owned by the Atchison syst'em) had 
been shipped overseas, and, had the war continued, 
we would have had in France by July, 19 19, enough 
American cars to make up a train the caboose of which 
would have been leaving Paris when the engine was 
entering Berlin. 

The Transportation Department had in operation 
between Tours, which was the headquarters of the 
Services of Supply, and Chaumont, which was the 
Great Headquarters, an ail-American train, drawn by 
an American locomotive, driven by an American engi- 
neer, and, as a final touch, with its sleeping-cars in 
charge of former Pullman porters, in khaki, it is true, 
but retaining their grins and their whisk-brushes. 
Every one in the A. E. F. was inordinately proud of 
that train, which stood as a sort of visible proof of 
American accomplishment in France. It had been 
officially christened the "Atterbury Special" in honor 



"ESSAYONS" 55 

of the Director-General of Transportation, but the 
soldiers had disrespectfully dubbed it the "Attaboy 
Special." One morning, as a group of American con- 
gressmen, on their way up to the front, were standing 
on the platform of the Tours station, the special came 
roaring in. 

"There's an example of American energy and 
promptness for you !" exclaimed one of the politicians 
proudly. "What a contrast to those wretched French 
trains! Not an hour or so late, as they are, but on 
time to the very minute." 

"Pardon me, sir," said a military policeman who 
had overheard the conversation, "that is yesterdays 
train." 

When it was first proposed by the Transportation 
Department that locomotives should be shipped to 
Europe without being knocked down, the Ship-Building 
Board vigorously protested. There were no ships in 
existence, the board said, which could stand up under 
such an immense concentrated load. But the Engi- 
neers proved that they knew more about the strength 
of ships than did the ship-builders, and the locomotives 
— 533 in all — were run out onto the wharves on their 
own wheels, picked up as easily as thoiigh they were 
baby-carriages by the giant gantry cranes, deposited 
in the hold — ^35 to a ship — together with their tenders, 
packed in baled hay, and upon arrival at the French 
ports were lifted out by the same method, lowered 
gently onto the rails, and a few hours later rolled off 
for the front under their own steam. The success with 



56 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

which the Engineers utilized business methods and re- 
vised specifications to meet American manufacturing 
conditions is strikingly illustrated by the fact that the 
cost of these locomotives, for which the French had 
been paying $51,000 each, was brought down to $37,- 
000, thus saving to the American taxpayer some 
seven millions of dollars — a very tidy sum. 

And, apropos of rolling-stock, here is a bit of 
secret history hitherto unpublished. When Villa's 
raiders were threatening to destroy the railway-lines 
paralleling the Mexican border, the Engineer Corps 
designed and built a number of self-propelling armored 
railway-cars armed with 3-inch rifles, machine-guns, 
and search-lights. When the German submarines 
began their piratical operations along the Atlantic 
seaboard in the spring of 19 18, these moving fortresses 
were secretly rushed up from the Rio Grande in order 
to afford protection to the undefended Jersey coast 
towns. It was well for the U-boat commanders that 
they did not attempt to shell Long Branch and At- 
lantic City as they shelled Scarborough and Broad- 
stairs. If they had, the Engineers and their armored 
cars would have given them the surprise of their lives. 

The non-military person does not ordinarily asso- 
ciate with war such prosaic occupations as lumbering, 
quarrying, and highway building. They seem, at least 
at first thought, to be in character essentially indus- 
trial. But it must be remembered that the workman 
played fully as great a part as the soldier in winning 
the Great War. In fact, the combat troops could not 



"ESSAYONS'' 57 

have held the line for a day had it not been for the 
labor battalions, which, without incentive or excite- 
ment, glory or reward, and in most cases mthout 
public appreciation, toiled so faithfully and unceas- 
ingly to build the wharves, to unload the ships, to lay 
the railways, to construct the roads, and to hurry for- 
ward, in an unending stream, the food for the men 
and the food for the guns. It is quite understandable, 
once you stop to think about it, that in order to main- 
tain our great armies in thp field, there were required 
immense quantities of lumber for building wharves, 
barracks, storehouses, hangars, and hospitals, and enor- 
mous amounts of stone, crushed rock, and gravel for 
metalHng the roads, ballasting the railways, buttress- 
ing the bridges, and making concrete for the fortifica- 
tions. When we entered the war the supply of lumber 
was not nearly equal to the demands of the Allied 
Armies, to say nothing of our own. And, though 
there was, of course, plenty of rock and gravel in this 
country, we could not spare the tonnage to ship it 
overseas, even had such a course been practicable. 
(Perhaps it has never occurred to you how vitally im- 
portant an item gravel is in military operations. Yet 
at one time the Germans threatened the Dutch with 
war if the latter persisted in their refusal to permit 
German gravel to be shipped across Holland for the 
construction of concrete fortifications in Belgium.) In 
view of these conditions, it devolved upon the Engi- 
neers to organize and equip special forestry, quarry, 
and highway regiments, as well as numerous labor bat- 
talions, and hurry them overseas with orders to obtain 



58 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

the urgently needed materials from the forests and 
quarries of France. 

Though Engineer officers of the regular establish- 
ment were, of course, given command of these special- 
ist regiments, the other officers as well as the soldiers 
themselves were recruited from men trained in the 
particular sort of work which each regiment was ex- 
pected to perform. How to obtain officers of sufficient 
experience in these various lines of industry, and in 
sufficient numbers, promised at first to be a serious 
problem, but it was quickly solved by the Personnel 
Division of the Engineers, which had had on file, ever 
since the war-clouds first appeared on America's hori- 
zon, tens of thousands of letters from men trained in 
every branch of the engineering profession, offering 
their services to the government in case of war. 
Hence, when it was decided to raise a forestry regi- 
ment, it was a simple matter to turn to the files and 
find the names of thousands of men — mill-owners, 
forest-rangers, lumbermen — with their experience and 
qualifications carefully listed, who were intimately 
familiar with every phase of the industry, from tree to 
finished board. The best qualified of these applicants 
were offered commissions by telegraph and instructed 
to go out into the lumber country and recruit their 
companies and battalions from men who had worked 
under them or whom they knew. Soon the walls of 
every employment-office, bunk-house, and cook-shack 
from the pine woods of Maine to the spruce forests of 
Washington blossomed with posters calling for axe- 
men, sawyers, log-drivers, timber-cruisers, mill-opera- 



"ESSAYONS" 59 

tors, cookees, teamsters, for immediate service over- 
seas. The response was prompt and startling. From 
their camps on the Kennebec and the Androscoggin, 
from the Adirondacks, from the pine-clad shores of 
Superior and Huron, from the Michigan Peninsula 
and the North Woods of Minnesota, from the forested 
slopes of the Wind River, the Bitter Roots, and the 
Cascades, from the big timber of the Far NorVest 
the lumbermen came pouring in, in mackinaws and 
parkas, in moccasins and shoepacks, in knitted toques 
and caps of fur, their scanty belongings wrapped in 
the blanket-rolls slung across their backs and often 
with their axes on their shoulders. Sinewy-limbed, 
saddle-colored, horny-handed, tough as the timber of 
the forests whence they came, these were the real 
pioneers, the conquerors of the wilderness, the last of 
the frontiersmen, and Europe will, in all likelihood, 
never see their picturesque like again. 

The first of the forestry regiments, the loth Engi- 
neers, sailed for Europe five months after the declara- 
tion of war, followed at short intervals by several simi- 
lar organizations. Immediately upon their arrival in 
France lumbering operations were begim in the Vosges 
and the Pyrenees (so do not be surprised if the next 
time you go shooting in Maine or fishing in Michigan 
your guide interlards his conversation with French or 
Spanish phrases), using French mills at first but later 
installing plants of the American type. The enlisted 
men of the forestry outfits were, as I have said, for the 
most part lumbermen by trade, officered by men 
familiar with lumbering in all its details. The result 



6o THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

was a striking illustration of what American energy 
and American methods can do, for the official reports 
show that mills which, under French management, 
were yielding 500 board feet a day, were made to 
yield ten times that quantity when operated by 
Yankee lumbermen. In the Vosges this work was 
carried on so close to the front that the plants were 
repeatedly bombed by enemy aircraft and shelled by 
enemy artillery, the forestry troops, though listed as 
non-combatants, frequently suffering heavy casualties. 
It took a high order of courage for these men to go un- 
concernedly about their business of tree-felling, haul- 
ing, and sawing with German shells yowling through 
the branches and bursting all about them. The saw- 
mills were of the portable type, however, and when 
the fire of the German guns became too accurate and 
heavy, the whole plant was packed up and shifted to 
a new location. I don't believe in letting loose upon 
my defenseless readers swarms of figures, but it will 
serve to give those of them who are familiar with lum- 
bering some idea of what our forestry regiments ac- 
complished when I mention that during the month of 
October, 19 18, alone, they produced 50,000,000 board 
feet of sawed lumber, 80,000 cords of firewood, and 
enough standard-gauge ties to build a single-track rail- 
way from the Great Lakes to the Gulf. 

In raising the quarry, highway, and inland water- 
way regiments, the same method was adopted as in 
the organization of the forestry battalions. Enormous 
quantities of crushed rock were required for concrete 
and for the construction and repair of roads, but though 



"ESSAYONS" 6i 

numerous quarries were available in the American 
areas, experienced quarrymen and quarrying equip- 
ment were lacking. Accordingly a special quarry regi- 
ment, the 28th Engineers, was organized in the United 
States in November, 191 7, with a strength of 60 officers 
and some 1,500 men. A skeleton organization was 
formed by transferring a few officers and a small de- 
tachment of men from a road regiment, the new unit 
being raised to strength by giving commissions to 
quarry managers and superintendents and filling up 
the ranks with drafted quarrymen. 

Spreading over almost the whole of France is a 
veritable network of navigable rivers and canals, of 
which the Engineers availed themselves to the ut- 
most in the transportation of material and supplies. 
Transportation by the inland waterways was in charge 
of the 57th Engineers, this regiment being largely 
recruited from men who had had experience on the 
canals and rivers of the United States. In the days 
to come many are the tales that will be told by skip- 
pers of stern-wheelers on the Mississippi and captains 
on the Erie Canal of the days when they and their 
huskies of the Inknd Waterways battalions moved 
the supplies for Pershing's men up the Seine and 
through the canals of the Mame and the Rhone. 

To the dredging, dock construction, and stevedore 
regiments was assigned the gigantic task of dredging 
the channels and harbors of the seaports which the 
French placed at our disposal, of building wharves and 
berths for the reception of American ships, and of the 
transferring of the cargoes from ship to shore. The 



62 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

magnitude of their task is shown by the fact that cargo 
shipments grew from 20,000 tons in July, 1917, to 
1,000,000 tons in November of the following year, 
while the 23 ship-berths which the French Govern- 
ment originally assigned to us had nearly quadrupled 
when the Armistice was signed. 

Unless you have marched with armies or trekked 
across hot and arid lands, you cannot know what it 
is to be thirsty — really thirsty, I mean; so thirsty 
that your tongue swells until it all but chokes you or 
lolls from your mouth like that of a panting dog. 
Water is infinitely more important to the success of 
a military operation than arms or ammunition; to 
a certain extent it is more important than food; for, 
though troops can fight for an amazingly long time on 
short rations, or even on no rations at all, they cannot 
fight without water. The vital importance of provid- 
ing an adequate water-supply was learned by the 
French in Algeria and Morocco, by the British in 
India and the Sudan, where the deserts were strewn 
for miles with the bodies of soldiers who had died 
from thirst. In the Cuban campaign our armies had 
far more deaths from impure water than from Spanish 
bullets. During the Italian offensive on the Carso, 
that terrible plateau of sun-scorched rock which lies 
beyond the Isonzo, hundreds of men, Italians and Aus- 
trians alike, died from thirst, the Austrians being even- 
tually compelled to retreat because the Italian artillery 
had destroyed the pipe-lines which supplied them with 
water. During the fighting on the Western Front dur- 



"ESSAYONS" 63 

ing the last summer of the war, when the semitropic 
sun of eastern France beat down on the heavy-laden 
backs of the panting, sweating men, when millions of 
feet and hoofs ground the roads to powder and filled 
eyes, ears, throats, and nostrils with the yellow, chok- 
ing dust, when the air reeked with the mmgled stenches 
of leather, gasoline, sweating horse-flesh, and human 
perspiration, and when, as the canteens emptied, the 
men peered anxiously over their shoulders for the com- 
pany water-carts, thousands realized as never before 
the truth of Kipling's words: 

"When it comes to slaughter, 
You must do your work on water." 

Now, when a hundred thousand men and thirty- 
five thousand animals are crowded into a sector per- 
haps three miles wide and seven miles deep, the prob- 
lem of keeping those men and animals supplied with 
water becomes tremendous. The responsibility for 
supplying with water the troops in the field fell upon 
the Army Water-Supply Service, which, as might be 
expected, was a branch of the Corps of Engineers. 
The Water-Supply Service was really a wholesaler of 
water, delivery being made at "water-points," from 
which water was drawn directly by men and animals, 
the largest customers being, however, the ubiquitous 
two-wheel water-carts of the infantry and artillery. 
To supply these "watef -points" every available source 
was utilized, springs developed, deep wells bored, vil- 
lage wells and cisterns cleaned out, streams purified 
and pumping-stations established, the aim being to 



64 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

provide water within a mile and a half of every con- 
sumer at the front. Ordinarily two gallons of water 
per man per day were furnished at the front, this 
quantity being sufficient for druiking, cooking, and 
lavatory purposes, but during the enormous troop con- 
centrations incident to the St. Mihiel and Argonne 
offensives this quantity had to be materially reduced, 
during those periods of stress and action the men hav- 
ing scant opportunity for either cooking or bathing. 
It was impossible, however, to reduce the quantity for 
the animals, for each of which eight to ten gallons had 
to be provided daily. 

Even under battle conditions the purity of the 
water was the first consideration, for impure water 
can work far more havoc with an army than enemy 
shell. In order to provide against this contingency, 
mobile laboratories for water-testing purposes moved 
in the van of the armies, and during the drives the 
Water-Supply troops were provided with poison-testing 
kits, for, warned by the experiences of the British in 
German Southwest Africa, where wells were systemati- 
cally poisoned by the enemy, we took no chances. 
Sources of supply were, wherever possible, protected, 
it being considered almost as serious an offense for a 
soldier to contaminate a water-supply as for him to 
sleep on post. Where water was found to be polluted, 
the troops, no matter how thirsty, were under no cir- 
cumstances permitted to use it until it had been filtered 
and sterilized. It is a curious fact that the chlorine 
used in gas-shell to kill Germans was used by the 
Water-Supply Service in minute quantities to kill an 



"ESSAYONS" 65 

equally dangerous and far more insidious enemy — the 
microbic disease-carriers in the water. Special motor- 
trucks, equipped with pumping, filtering, sterilizing, 
and testing apparatus, time after time demonstrated 
that they were able to get into action and deliver pure 
water from a polluted supply within thirty minutes 
after their arrival. 

In many cases the position of the troops and the 
nature of the terrain made it possible to deliver water 
only by hauling. This was done by means of trains of 
motorized water-tanks and by special tank-cars operat- 
ing over the narrow-gauge railway systems, the tank 
trucks and cars being emptied into reservoirs built in 
strategic positions near the front. A common and 
quickly built reservoir consisted of a hole in the ground, 
a waterproof canvas lining, and a camouflaged cover. 
The lives of the tank-train truck-drivers were hard 
and exciting, for though the roads over which they 
had to pass in approaching the front were nearly always 
subjected to heavy shell-fire, there could be no let-up 
in supplying water for the troops on the firing-line. 
Most of the activities of the Water-Supply troops were 
between the locations of the light artillery and the 
heavy artillery, the men consequently working almost 
continuously within the areas under enemy bombard- 
ment. On one occasion, during the open warfare inci- 
dent to the St. Mihiel offensive, the driver of a water- 
truck ventured so close to a German machine-gun 
nest that when he came back his tank was found to be 
better adapted for road-sprinkling than for water- 
transportation purposes. 4 

L.. k 



66 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

It is scarcely necessary to remark that enormous 
quantities of material were required for the work of 
the Water-Supply Service, 60 miles of pipe and 300 
gas-driven pumps being used during the St. Mihiel and 
Argonne-Meuse operations alone. As there were not 
enough Water-Supply troops — the 26th Engineers — for 
the needs of the army, it was found necessary to sup- 
plement their numbers with other Engineer units, 
motor-truck companies, and pioneer infantry, the 
Water-Supply Service of the First Army reaching a 
maximum of 3,500 officers and men. 

One does not usually associate intelligence work 
with water-supply, yet the American Water-Supply 
Service had an intelligence section which was as 
efficient as that of any branch of the army. Informa- 
tion regarding the water-supply in the territory be- 
hind the enemy lines was gathered from all available 
sources, the Wasserversorgung maps captured from the 
Germans affording much valuable data, and the in- 
formation thus obtained was published at frequent 
intervals, together with maps. The production of 
these water-maps ffiially became so highly developed 
that it was possible for the intelligence section of the 
Water-Supply Service to place full information at the 
disposal of the divisional intelligence officers within 
twenty-four hours after it had been received. So rapid 
was the American advance in certain sectors that scores 
of Boche pumping-plants were captured while still in 
operation, and turned to the task of supplying the 
thirsty Yanks. I might add that German prisoners, 
particularly of the corresponding enemy service, fre- 



"ESSAYONS" 67 

quently were as successfully pumped for information 
as the wells sunk by the enemy were pumped for 
water. 

One of the most picturesque and interesting devel- 
opments of the war — and, because of the secrecy which 
surrounded it, one of the least known — is the work of 
the flash and sound ranging section of the Engineer 
Corps. For the benefit of the uninitiated — and most 
people are uninitiated, so far as this phase of warfare 
is concerned — I might explain that flash-ranging means 
the location of an enemy gun or battery by the detec- 
tion of the flash, and sound-ranging by the location of 
the sound. Flash-reading, as it is called, is carried on 
by means of two or more observers provided with 
powerful telescopes, who are stationed at known dis- 
tances apart. By "spotting" the flashes of an enemy 
battery and reporting them, together with the exact 
direction at which they occur, and by using these read- 
ings as a basis, a simple calculation in triangulation 
will give the location of the gun. So highly has this 
flash-ranging been developed that a gun can now be 
located within five yards, when the ''core" of the 
flash can be seen. In principle the process is extremely 
simple, but in practice it is complicated by the fact 
that the observers may not train their telescopes on 
the same flash, in which case the gun position calcu- 
lated at headquarters from their telephoned reports 
will be in error. This difficulty is met, however, by 
providing each observer with an outpost switch-set, 
by means of which he can flash a miniature light at 



68 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

the headquarters station at the instant he makes an 
observation, just as a hght glows on a hotel telephone 
switchboard when a guest up-stairs rings for ice-water. 
When several of the observers flash their light simul- 
taneously, it is assumed that they all probably caught 
the same flash, and their observations are then plotted. 
In other words, the line of sight of each observer is 
prolonged on a map until they intersect, the point of 
intersection corresponding with the location of the 
German gun. 

Flash-ranging was also found to be of great value 
in checking the ranges of our own guns. If we were 
firing at a hidden target, a shell was timed so that it 
would burst when at the top of its trajectory. Ob- 
servers would "spot" this burst, and if it was reported 
as being at the spot where calculations showed that it 
should occur, the gunners knew that they had the cor- 
rect range. 

Sound-ranging was carried on along much the 
same lines as flash-ranging, except that the readings 
were made by instruments instead of by observers. 
Large guns may be camouflaged so that their detec- 
tion, either by aerial observation or by the flash of 
the gun when fired, is extremely difiicult, but there 
is no known way to conceal the location of the gun 
from sound-ranging instruments, suitably placed and 
properly operated. This method became so highly 
developed that it was reported that during the latter 
months of the war over 80 per cent of the work of 
locating gun positions on the British Front was done 
by sound-ranging. The instruments used for this 



''ESSAYONS" 69 

work are of a highly technical nature and for their 
successful operation require a skilled personnel. Re- 
cording instruments, so delicate that their use here- 
tofore had not been dreamed of outside of experimental 
laboratories and then only in the hands of men care- 
fully trained in their operation, were set up on the 
firing-line and operated successfully under battle con- 
ditions, even when the air was quivering from heavy 
bombardments and the earth was shaking from the 
deluge of steel. The sound-receivers, or detecting in- 
struments, are located well to the front, whereas the 
recording instruments are several miles in the rear. 
A sound disturbance due to the firing of a gun some- 
where behind the enemy lines is transmitted through 
several miles of wire to the recording instrument in the 
rear, and the sound records received almost simulta- 
neously from several detecting instruments are traced 
on a sensitized ribbon, or tape of photographic paper, 
or on a ribbon of smoked paper, depending on the 
type of instrument used. The intervals of time elaps- 
ing between the arrival of the various sound disturb- 
ances is used as a basis for determining the origin of 
sound which produced the records. By this means 
over 100 new German gun positions were located in 
a single day on the British Front. In fact, before the 
assault on Messines Ridge the British sound-rangers 
had located practically every German battery, so that 
the British gunners had their exact range when the 
attack was launched. When the Armistice put an 
end to hostilities there were in operation along the 
American Front some twelve complete American sound- 



70 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

ranging sections, each covering a front of approxi- 
mately five miles. 

A sound-ranging section on an active sector of 
the American front usually consisted of four officers 
and from eighty to a hundred men, one-half of whom 
were specially trained in the care of instruments, ob- 
servation work, and mathematical computations. On 
a stable sector the personnel of the section could, of 
course, be considerably reduced. 

The principles, methods, and instruments em- 
ployed by the sound-ranging section of the Engineers 
for locating active enemy batteries or for ranging the 
friendly artillery on any objective whose map-location 
was known were of an extremely technical nature and 
not easy of comprehension by a lay mind. So for the 
information of those readers who are technically in- 
clined I have asked the Engineer officer who was in 
charge of sound-ranging in the A. E. F. to explain in 
the simplest possible language how the work was done. 
Here is his explanation. Make the most of it. 

The principle employed by the sound-ranging sec- 
tion of the Engineers for locating active enemy bat- 
teries or for ranging the friendly artillery on any 
objective whose map co-ordinates are known is the 
following: The time of arrival of the sound from an 
enemy gun (or from the burst of the shells from the 
friendly artillery) at three surveyed stations inside the 
friendly lines determines the position of the source of 
the sound if simple corrections are applied for the 
temperature of the air and the direction and velocity 
of the wind. For example, if the three surveyed sta- 



"ESSAYONS" 71 

tions are on an arc of a circle and the sound of the 
enemy gun arrives at all three stations at the same 
time, then the gun must be at the centre of the circle. 
If the sound arrives first at the westernmost station 
and last at the easternmost, then the gun must lie to 
the westward of the centre. If the sound arrives earli- 
est at the middle station and later at the flank stations, 
then the gun must lie between the centre of the circle 
and the stations. In practice six stations are used 
to insure greater accuracy, and graphical methods of 
computation are employed to shorten the time of 
calculation. Accuracies of fifty yards are regarded 
as average, and from one to two minutes for calcula- 
tion are usually needed. 

A somewhat different form of sound-ranging is 
used for the detection of aircraft at night. The appa- 
ratus for this aerial sound-ranging consists of large 
sound-gathering instruments which are used to direct 
search-lights in the location of approaching airplanes. 
When a bombing-plane approaches at night the hum 
of the motor can be heard at a distance of from one to 
three miles or more, depending upon the direction of 
the sound and the atmospheric conditions. The direc- 
tion of sound, however, particularly when it originates 
in the sky, is illusive to the naked ear and search-lights 
were obliged to sweep the heavens in the general di- 
rection from which the airplane was believed to be 
approaching, in an endeavor to locate it. By the use 
of these detectors, however, the sound of an airplane 
can be detected at a considerably greater distance than 
by the naked ear, and, what is even more important. 



72 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

its direction can be determined within a very small 
angle — less than five degrees. In this way the area 
over which the search-light has to sweep is greatly 
reduced, and the chances of locating the aerial ma- 
rauder are enormously increased. 

Extensive experiments have been conducted in this 
country by the Engineer Corps in the development 
of these aerial sound-detectors. One form consists of 
four horns, two in a vertical and two in a horizontal 
plant, with listening-tubes leading from the small ends 
to the receivers of the observer's head-set. These 
horns are mounted so as to permit rotation on a hori- 
zontal shaft and turning on a plane-table, the whole 
being supported on a sort of steel tower which, owing 
to its height and the fact that it cannot easily be moved, 
affords a rather conspicuous target for the enemy. 
The obvious disadvantage of this type is recompensed 
in a measure, however, by its accuracy and by the fact 
that it wiU so magnify a sound that the operators can 
hear the tick of a watch a hundred and fifty yards 
away. This apparatus is, however, large and cumber- 
some, and though excellent for seacoast and fortress 
defense, is not adapted for use in the field, where ex- 
treme mobility is required. For this latter purpose 
paraboloid sound-reflectors have been developed. 
These paraboloids are about nine feet in diameter, 
made in sectors of material similar to beaver board, 
and look like enormous editions of kettles used for 
boiling soap. They can be taken down and packed 
into small space for transportation, and are easily 
set up; being mounted on Ford chassis, they can go 



"ESSAYONS" 73 

anywhere that a ''flivver" can go. The paraboloids, 
like the horns, are directed by balancing the sound 
so that it is equally audible in both ears. These in- 
struments have a sensitiveness double that of the un- 
aided ear and by means of them a sound can be 
located to within three degrees. 

When the officer in charge of one of these sound- 
detectors hears through the receivers of his head-set 
the rhythmic hum which denotes an approaching air- 
plane — and I might mention, parenthetically, that ex- 
perienced observers can tell with almost absolute cer- 
tainty not only the nationality of the approaching 
machine but even the type and power of its engines — 
he orders several sound-readings to be taken at definite 
intervals of time. With these readings as a basis for 
the calculation, the probable location of the airplane 
at the end of the next time interval is plotted and the 
search-light is flashed in that direction just long enough 
to locate the machine. Quick work is required, how- 
ever, for the airplane often travels at a hundred miles 
or more an hour and may abruptly change its course 
at any moment. Then, the plane once spotted, the 
beam of the search-light never leaves it, and the waiting 
crews of the antiaircraft guns get to work. Experi- 
ments are now being conducted to enable these listen- 
ing devices to be used in synchronization with search- 
lights, so that, when the light is flashed, the airplane 
will be within the beam and no indication of the pres- 
ence of the search-light will be given the aviator until 
he finds himself illuminated as a spot-light follows the 
movements of a dancer on a darkened stage. 



74 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

In the autumn of 191 7 the National Research 
Council, at the request of the Chief of Engineers, in- 
augurated an extensive series of search-light investiga- 
tions, which, thanks to the enthusiastic co-operation of 
scientists, manufacturers, and certain government bu- 
reaus, resulted in a number of remarkable develop- 
ments. Eighteen different kinds of search-lights were 
developed during these experiments, the first being 
placed in operation in France in October, 191 8. This 
represented an entirely new form of light, more power- 
ful than any heretofore produced by any nation. It 
weighs about one-eighth as much as the most powerful 
search-Hght theretofore produced, costs only about 
one-third as much, and has about one-quarter the 
cubage. Other improvements now in progress give 
assurance that its range will be doubled, its cost still 
further reduced, and its mobility greatly increased. 
And, what is of almost equal importance, the designs 
are now becoming so simplified that production need 
no longer be confined to highly speciaHzed shops, but 
may be distributed over the country to all classes of 
machine manufacturers, thus making it possible to 
produce a large quantity in a relatively short time. 
With this new equipment the United States will pos- 
sess a search-light having an effective range approxi- 
mately twice that of the best search-light produced 
before the war, with four times as great a field. Two 
features of the latest types of lamps are particularly 
worthy of notice. These are, first, the ''dish-pan" 
type of light, the chief characteristic of which is that 
it has no lens; and, second, the metal mirror, which 



"ESSAYONS" 75 

is much more easily manufactured, is far less fragile, 
costs only a third as much, and possesses almost as 
great reflecting qualities as the glass ones. 

The search-light used by the American forces for 
antiaircraft work is the heavy 6o-inch seacoast type 
— the largest light known — lightened and modified for 
use in the field, with a range of practically 30,000 feet. 
As the result of recent experiments it has been found 
that the visibility at 12,000 feet was 85 per cent, while 
at 15,000 feet, or nearly 3 miles, it was 43 per cent. 
In order to obtain these standards of comparison for 
visibility for search-lights, an aviator was directed 
to fly back and forth through the beam a certain num- 
ber of times. If the observers on the ground recorded 
the full number of passages across the beam, 100 per 
cent was registered, this occurring regularly at 5,000 
feet, and in most cases during tests at 8,000 feet. The 
percentage of visibility was, in other words, the num- 
ber of times the airplane was seen to the number of 
times it crossed the beam. 

When warfare of movement becomes stabilized 
into position or trench warfare, it is almost certain 
that, sooner or later, one side or the other will resort 
to some form of underground attack. To permit of 
this subterranean warfare, certain conditions are requi- 
site: the lines must be fairly close together, the level 
of the ground-water must be deep, and the ground 
itself must not be too hard. These obstacles to suc- 
cessful mining are not insuperable, however, for, pre- 
paratory to their assault on Messines Ridge, the British 



76 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

drove a tunnel which was a mile in length, and on 
the Carso I saw ItaHan engineers driving their galleries 
through solid rock. France and England early recog- 
nized the importance of this form of warfare and 
organized their miners accordingly, and, upon our 
entrance into the war, we too organized and sent to 
France a mining regiment — the 27th Engineers. It 
is estimated that by the summer of 191 8 there were 
upward of 40,000 skilled miners on the Western 
Front, these soldiers of the pick and drill having 
been brought from the remotest corners of the earth 
— from the Yukon, the Rand, and the Congo, from 
Mexico, Australia, and Cahfomia. In my "Vive la 
France!" I told, if I remember rightly, of the Cor- 
nish miners, known as "kickers," who lay on their 
backs, as they do in the tin mines in Cornwall, where 
the galleries are so low that there is no room to swing 
a pick, and kicked away the earth by means of a sort 
of spur attached to their heels. 

The officers of the American mining regiment were 
engineers who had had practical experience in all those 
far-off regions where men seek their fortunes in the 
earth. One of them, a young lieutenant, was diamond- 
mining in the Katanga district of the Congo when 
word reached him by native runner that the United 
States had decided to take a hand in the Great War. 
It took him four months of uninterrupted travel by 
horse, wagon, rail, and boat to reach the United States 
and offer his services to the Chief of Engineers. An- 
other of our mining officers was a prisoner of the revo- 
lutionists in Mexico when the rumor penetrated to his 



"ESSAYONS" 77 

prison cell that the United States had gone to war. 
That night he overpowered his guards, scaled the 
prison wall, made his way on foot across northern 
Mexico, the journey being relieved from monotony 
by several hairbreadth escapes from bandit bands, 
and reached the border in time to join the Engineers 
and go to France with one of the first contingents. 

In former wars military mining was almost wholly 
confined to siege operations; that is, driving galleries 
under fortified positions and blowing them up. But 
the Great War developed an entirely new system of 
mining tactics, which included frontal and flank at- 
tacks, raids, enveloping movements, and other phases 
of war as fought on the surface of the earth. "Unlike 
the soldier who fights above ground," explained a min- 
ing officer, "the miner has to be prepared for attacks 
not only against his front and flanks, but for assaults 
which may come from overhead or from underneath. 
In other words, he has four flanks to defend instead 
of two." 

A typical mining position, such as would be pre- 
pared on an active sector of the front, would consist of 
an upper level having a series of forked galleries, known 
as "feelers," with geophone listening-posts at their ex- 
tremities, and a deeper level, with numerous "fighting 
branches" projecting from it, to protect the lower 
flank. Just as the sentries in the trenches strained 
their eyes to detect any ominous figures in the dark- 
ness of No Man's Land, so the mining sentinels, crouch- 
ing over their geophones in the headings of dim-lit 
galleries, strained their ears to catch the faint sounds 



78 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

which gave warning that the enemy was approaching 
underground. The geophone, which has proved of in- 
calculable value in mining warfare, is an instrument 
for augmenting small sounds coming through the 
ground. The American geophone, which is a highly 
sensitive, extremely simple, and easily portable in- 
strument, is in no sense an electrical device, resem- 
bling, rather, the stethoscope used by physicians for 
testing the lungs. In mining operations two geo- 
phones are used, one for each ear, the instruments 
being so sensitive that the sounds caused by a fly walk- 
ing on the wooden support of the geophone appear 
as loud as the tramp of a horse on the floor of a stable. 
If a sentinel on duty in an underground listening-post 
caught through his geophone a sound which was more 
distinct in, say, his right ear than in his left, he gently 
shifted one of the instruments, inch by inch, until the 
sound was the same in both ears. Then, by means of 
a compass, he took the magnetic bearing of a line per- 
pendicular to that passing through the two geophones, 
which would give the direction from which the sound 
came. Meanwhile sentries in the other listening-post-s 
were doing the same thing, so that, by the co-ordina- 
tion of their reports and by triangulation, the enemy's 
gallery could be located within a few yards. 

If the mining officer was convinced that the enemy 
was driving a gallery for the purpose of putting a mine 
under his position, two courses of action would be 
open to him. He could remain on the defensive and 
check the enemy's advance by the use of "camou- 
flets," this being the name applied to explosive charges 



"ESSAYONS" 79 

which expend their force laterally, thus destroying the 
enemy's gallery without causing a crater; or he could 
resort to strategy and engage the enemy's attention 
at one point by exploding camouflets or by working 
noisily, and under cover of this diversion drive a fight- 
ing gallery toward his flank elsewhere. If, instead of 
being content to remain on the defensive, the officer in 
charge of mining operations decided to assume the 
offensive, he would engage the enemy's attention at 
one point, either by exploding camouflets or by work- 
ing noisily, and at the same time drive a fighting gal- 
lery toward his adversary's flank. In this latter case 
the most profound silence had, of course, to be en- 
forced in the fighting branch if the enemy's geophones 
were not to give warning of its approach. No talking 
was permitted, the men wore felt-soled shoes and 
worked with trowels instead of picks, and the earth 
was carried out in cars with rubber tires. So silently 
were the operations in the fighting branches conducted 
that they would frequently break into the enemy gal- 
leries without the slightest warning, whereupon would 
ensue a struggle fought scores of feet beneath the sur- 
face of the earth, by combatants armed with picks, 
pistols, bombs, and knives, and iUuminated only by 
flickering miners' lamps — a battle so weird and strange 
in its character and setting that it seemed like the 
creation of a motion-picture writer's brain. 

One of the essentials for the success of a mining 
operation is the concealment of the spoil — i. e., the ex- 
cavated earth — ^which, if piled in a heap at the entrance 
to the workings, would almost certainly be photo- 



8o THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

graphed by aerial observers, thus informing the enemy, 
as unmistakably as though it were announced on a 
placard, that a mining gallery was being driven. The 
French, in order to hide the spoil from their mining 
operations, conceived the ingenious plan of digging a 
shallow trench, usually only a few inches deep, and 
lining it with black paper, so that when photographed 
from an airplane it produced the effect of the black 
shadow cast by a trench of customary depth. They 
would then distribute the spoil from their subterranean 
galleries along the sides of this false trench, so that it 
appeared in the photograph to have been thrown up 
from it. 

Dugouts have become such a commonplace in the 
past four years that few, save the miners themselves, 
gave much thought to or had more than the haziest 
ideas of the time, skill, and labor required in their con- 
struction. Take yourself, for example. You have 
read about dugouts and seen pictures of dugouts and 
have probably had relatives or friends living in dug- 
outs. How long, then, think you, would it take a 
force of skilled miners to complete a front-line dugout 
large enough to accommodate a half-platoon? (For 
your information I might explain that such a dugout 
is 35 feet long, 9 feet wide, and 6 feet high, with 17 feet 
of overhead cover.) Using all the men that could be 
employed, and working from nightfall until dawn, it 
would require at least three months to complete such 
a dugout. If in the rear area, where the men could 
be worked continuously in shifts, it could be completed 
in about thirty days. 




NEW TYPE OF SEARCH-LIGHT USED IN THE AMERICAN \RMV 

The steel tower is collapsible and light and, being mounted on a motor-truck, is extremely mobile. 




Constructing the screen. 




The screen as it appeared upon completion. 
CAMOUFLAGING A DIVISIONAL HEADQUARTERS IN THE TOUL SECTOR. 



"ESSAYONS" 8i 

A recent and little-advertised development of 
trench warfare was the introduction of "mobile 
charges." These consisted of packages of high explo- 
sive in ten, twenty, or thirty pound sizes, which were 
used by assaulting troops for destroying dugouts, 
much as depth bombs were used by the navy to de- 
stroy submarines. With the increasing use of mobile 
charges it became necessary to design dugouts which 
would be proof against them. In this work, which 
was carried on by the Mining School, extensive use 
was made of dogs, experiments having shown that 
explosions which will rupture the lung-tissues of a dog 
will similarly affect those of a human being. Thanks 
to the knowledge thus obtained at the cost of canine 
lives, a type of dugout construction was perfected 
which afforded the occupants comparative immunity 
from mobile charges and hand-grenades. An ingenious 
receptacle for this latter form of enemy visiting-card 
was the "bomb-pit," which was a sort of small cis- 
tern, built at the foot of the dugout stairs, into 
which a hand-grenade would fall and explode harm- 
lessly. 

Though it has no direct relation to the work of 
the American Mining School, I might mention, as an 
illustration of the part played by miners in the great 
conflict, that when the British in 191 7 blew off the 
entire top of Messines Ridge prior to their assault 
on that position, 19 mines, containing a total of 
950,000 pounds of ammonal — equivalent to 1,580,000 
pounds of dynamite — were exploded simultaneously. 
A single one of these mines contained 95,000 pounds 



82 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

of ammonal and made a crater i86 feet wide and 125 
feet deep. 

Though few activities of the Engineers were more 
important than the work of the Camouflage Section, 
and though certainly none was more picturesque or 
interesting, it is with some diffidence that I introduce 
the subject, for I am perfectly aware that American 
readers have been, to make use of a British colloquial- 
ism, "jolly well fed-up" on everything pertaining to 
camouflage. The point is, however, that they have 
been largely "fed-up" on misinformation. They have 
read hundreds of magazine articles and newspaper 
stories about fake trees and papier-mache horses and 
the like, but of the real work of the Camouflage Corps 
— ^which, as an American general remarked, was "as 
practical as machine-guns and as necessary as ammu- 
nition" — they have heretofore been permitted, for 
quite obvious reasons, to know next to nothing. Cer- 
tain camouflage operations on the American Front were 
of such vital importance to the success of our armies 
that, far from acquainting the public with them, they 
were veiled in the profoundest mystery. 

Military camouflage is a development of the 
Great War and has, therefore, no history and little lit- 
erature. It differs from the purely scientific work of 
engineering, which has few variants and in which 
nearly all problems can be worked out by formula, in 
that it has countless variants of light, color, and posi- 
tion, and each problem of concealment is an individual 
one. Upon the entry of the United States into the 



"ESSAYONS" 83 

war, much study was devoted to French and British 
camouflage methods, both in the factory and in the 
field. The British, it was found, did nothing without 
the most careful scientific investigation, which included 
aerophotography of all materials, while the more care- 
less and temperamental French relied rather on their 
innate artistic sense of form and color. By combining 
the best features of both systems and strongly tinctur- 
ing them with American energy, ingenuity, and manu- 
facturing methods, our Camouflage Service soon came 
to be recognized as the best equipped and most effi- 
cient in the Allied Armies. At Dijon, in the Depart- 
ment of the Haute-Marne, we established a huge plant, 
known as the Central Camouflage Factory, where a 
hundred soldiers and some nine hundred French- 
women were employed in the production of materials, 
while at the Army Camouflage School of Fort St. 
Menge, near Langres, practical instruction was given 
in the use of these materials in the field. 

When the war ended, the American Camouflage 
Service consisted of a battalion of the 40th Engineers 
— which was on the point of being expanded into a 
regiment — under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel 
H. S. Bennison, with Evarts Tracy, one of the fore- 
most architects in America, as major. Captain Homer 
Saint-Gaudens, a son of the famous sculptor, was in 
charge of the camouflage work of the Second Army, 
and Captain John Root, whose father was architect of 
the Colombian Exposition, was in charge of all camou- 
flage work for the army artillery, he being largely 
responsible for the remarkable developments in this 



84 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

branch of warfare. The director of the Camouflage 
School at Fort St. Menge was Lieutenant Wilford S. 
Conrow, the noted portrait-painter. Another officer 
of the battalion, Lieutenant Harry Thrasher, a graduate 
of the Ecole des Beaux- Arts and a winner of the Prix 
de Rome, was killed while doing camouflage work at 
Fismes, as was Sergeant Everett Herter, a son of Al- 
bert Herter, the artist. Because of the exacting na- 
ture of its requirements, the Camouflage Service had, 
perhaps, a more highly educated enlisted personnel 
than any other organization in the army. Among 
the men wearing the uniforms of privates in the corps 
was the landscape-architect who laid out the grounds 
of the San Diego Exposition, the stage-manager for 
Maude Adams, the head property-man of the Universal 
Film Company, and Louis Tiffany's chief designer. 
One of the instructors at the school was a successful 
osteopath who in his younger days had been a scene- 
painter; another was a sculptor whose statues may 
be seen in many American museums and parks. 

Figures are, as a rule, dry reading, but they pro- 
vide the best means I know of giving some idea of the 
magnitude of our camofleurs' operations. During the 
summer of 1918 the Camouflage Section used materials 
per month as follows : 

12,000 fish-nets. 
50,000 pounds of wire. 
700,000 gallons of paint. 
2,160,000 square yards of poultry-netting and approximately 
1,000 acres of burlap. 

The best and most concise rules which I have seen 
for the erection of camouflage and for the enforcement 



"ESSAYONS" Ss 

of camouflage discipline are contained in secret in- 
structions issued in July, 1918, by the commander of 
the German First Army. They read as follows: 

CAMOUFLAGE 

Translation of a German Document (from French IV Army 
Bulletin, August 8, 1918) 

ist Army 
Command of the Aviation Service 
la-Ib 

Army Headquarters, 
July I, 1918. 

I. Essential Points in the Construction of Positions. 

(a) General. 

1. Camouflage will be completed before undertaking 

the work. 

2. Camouflage will be sufficiently extensive in order 

that all the work required may be carried out 
under its protection. 

3. Faulty installation will be left in place as dummy 

work and be begun over again at another point 
with the necessary prudence. 

(b) Tracks. 

1. Tracks must be as few as possible and have a natural 

appearance. It is best to avoid all tracks by 
building the position on roads already in existence. 

2. Provide fixed access for everybody. If necessary, 

stake the paths out by means of wire. 

3. Extend indispensable tracks beyond the position as 

far as the dummy work. 

4. Use furrows as paths, do not go across fields. 

5. Do not dump materials in the immediate neighbor- 

hood of the position. 

(c) Color of the Camouflage. 

I. Harmonize the color of the camouflage with the ter- 



86 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

rain. Green camouflage in meadows, brown in 
ploughed fields, white in quarries. 

2. The upper surface of the camouflage will be alternate 

light and dark tones; grass, reeds, hay, or branches 
fixed in iron wire, etc. 

3. Renew the camouflage in proper time; the grass and 

branches fade quickly and appear light and not 
dark on the photographs. 

4. The position must not extend partly over one field 

and partly over another, as two fields are seldom 
of the same color. The furrows will be reproduced 
in the camouflage. 

5. Camouflage materials, such as the sod removed and 

small trees, will be taken at a distance of at least 
three to four hundred meters from the position; 
place a dummy work at a sufficient distance in 
order that it does not reveal the true position. 

(d) Forms of Camouflage. 

1. Do not raise the height of the camouflage needlessly; 

the higher it is the more shadow it throws. Raise 
it by means of posts during the work; bring it 
down by day and lay it flat if possible; cover mainly 
the entries and exits. 

2. Do not make a heap of the earth removed but scatter 

it immediately. 

3. There must be no fresh cuts visible, as marked con- 

trasts result from it between the light and dark 
surfaces, the latter appearing as deep shadows on 
the ground. 

4. Avoid regular shapes and rectangular outlines. 

5. Do not change natural shapes. Positions in fills and 

embankments must not change the form of the 
fill or embankment. 

6. Use the roads, fills, embankments, slopes, sunken 

roads, edges of woods to greater extent. Deceive 
the enemy by false tracks ending in woods. 

II. Main Instructions for Columns. 

(a) Resting columns, location, and nature of halting-places. 



"ESSAYONS" 87 

The most important thing is that the halting- 
places be of irregular form. 

1. It is best to distribute the columns irregularly under 

trees of gardens, avenues, roads, and courtyards, 
even if not very dense. 

2. The camouflage of wagons or artillery pieces by 

means of branches does not secure them from re- 
connaissance by airplanes, when the column is in 
the open on light-colored ground, as, for example, 
on dry roads. Shadows enlarge in a surprising 
manner. 

3. In villages, keep close to the houses, walls, enclo- 

sures of gardens and hedges, but, if possible, with 
irregular distribution. The best side is always the 
north side of houses, walls, etc., on account of the 
shadow. 

4. In small courtyards the wagons are lined up one be- 

side the other and the tarpaulins joined in order to 
make a roof. This appears as a smooth and very 
natural surface on the photograph, which does not 
attract the enemy's attention. 

5. Lessen the tracks, if possible. Do not widen the 

roads of approach uselessly. Follow the track. 
Mark out footpaths, staking them out, if neces- 
sary, by wire. 
(b) Troops on foot, wagons, and artillery columns on the 
march. 

1. Even at night make more use of tracks which are 

generally dark; the columns can then with diffi- 
culty be observed by airplanes; on the other hand, 
columns on roads which appear light can be seen 
even at night. 

2. Infantry columns will be divided into small groups 

distributed in depth and advance along the shady 
side of roads. 

3. When airplanes use light projectors at night keep in 

the shade of trees or buildings. 

III. General Rule. 

When surprised by airplanes, either by day or by night, use 



&& THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

all natural shade provided by trees, embankments, 
houses, etc., and remain motionless. 
By Order of the General Commanding the Army. 

Chief of Staff. 
(Signed) Faupel, Lieutenant-Colonel. 

So great, indeed, was the importance attached to 
camouflage by the German High Command that, dur- 
ing the last year of the war, there was attached to 
every German division a "security officer" whose duty 
it was to enforce the rigid observance of camouflage 
discipline. In many cases these security officers kept 
a watch on their respective division from observation- 
balloons. They were answerable only to Great Head- 
quarters and were empowered, I understand, to recom- 
mend the removal of all officers up to and including 
generals of division for infraction of the rules for cam- 
ouflage discipline as laid down by Ludendorff. 

Camouflage, it should be kept in mind, is of two 
kinds — negative and positive. Negative camouflage 
consists in the conceahnent of troops, trenches, mine- 
shafts, battery positions, ammunition-dumps, hangars, 
or other objects, knowledge of whose location must 
be kept, if possible, from the enemy. Positive camou- 
flage, on the contrary, consists in the imitation or sug- 
gestion of troops, trenches, batteries, etc., in certain 
locations, when, in reality, there is nothing of the sort 
there, in order to deceive and bewilder the enemy. It 
occasionally became necessary, for example, to con- 
vince the Germans that a large troop movement was 
in progress behind a certain sector of the front, whereas 
the real movement was taking place scores of miles 



"ESSAYONS" 89 

away. If it was desired to suggest a movement by 
rail, smoke-pots with clouds of dense black smoke belly- 
ing from them were placed on flat cars and moved 
about from point to point on the military railways. 
German aviators, observing these columns of smoke 
at numerous points along the railways, naturally 
assumed that they came from locomotives hauling 
troop-laden trains and promptly reported that large 
bodies of troops were apparently being moved by rail 
behind the American lines. Thereupon the German 
commander would rush up his reserves to resist the 
attack which he believed to be impending. Or, if it 
was desired to imitate a troop movement by road, the 
camouflage officer would requisition large numbers of 
Fords, which would be driven madly along the roads, 
dragging bundles of brush behind them. The great 
clouds of dust which thus suddenly appeared on the 
highways naturally suggested to the German observers 
that the verdamnte Yankees were rushing large bodies 
of troops to the front by bus or motor-truck. Fooling 
Fritz was an amusing game while it lasted. 

This latter ruse, I might mention parenthetically, 
was not original with the Americans, for President 
Diaz, of Mexico, once related to me how, when he and 
his little band of patriots were being hotly pursued by 
the French forces sent to Mexico to keep Maximilian 
on his unstable throne, he ordered his vaqueros to cut 
bundles of mesquite and drag them behind them by 
their lariats. It was in the dry season, and the dense 
clouds of yellow dust thus stirred up convinced the 
French commander that the Mexican force was far 



90 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

stronger than it really was. He thereupon precipi- 
tately abandoned the pursuit and a few weeks later 
General Diaz, having gained the breathing-spell neces- 
sary to augment his forces, fought and won the deci- 
sive battle of Puebla. 

It has frequently been said that the camera does 
not lie, but such assertions were made before the Cam- 
ouflage Corps commenced its operations. Thereafter 
the negatives brought in by the German airmen began 
to prove so unreliable that the officers whose business 
it was to interpret them never knew whether they 
were telling the truth or not. For example, it fre- 
quently became necessary after heavy bombardments 
in which long stretches of entanglements had been de- 
stroyed, to convince the enemy that the wire had been 
repaired. This illusion was accomplished by the sim- 
ple stratagem of driving stakes into the ground and 
festooning them with fish-nets, for, in a photograph 
taken from the sky, fish-nets thus arranged are indis- 
tinguishable from wire. If such ruses are to deceive 
the enemy, however, as much attention must be paid 
to detail in their execution as David Belasco pays to 
detail in the production of a play. On a certain British 
sector a not overintelligent subaltern was ordered by 
his battalion commander to take a working party and 
put out some 500 yards of this imitation wire, as there 
was reason to believe that the Huns, thinking the sec- 
tor unprotected by entanglements, were preparing 
to make an attack. Now it is some job, even for a 
large and well-trained working party, to put out 500 
yards of wire in much under a day. Heedless of such 



"ESSAYONS" 91 

minor details, however, the lieutenant gayly slammed 
in his stakes and spread his fish-nets as fast as his men 
could work, "wiring" the 500 yards of front in little 
more than an hour. From high in the blue German 
airmen photographed the proceeding. When one set 
of photographs showed a sector destitute of wire and 
another set of pictures, taken an hour later, showed 
the same area with a complete system of wire entangle- 
ments, the suspicions of Von Hindenburg's intelligence 
officers were naturally aroused, and the next morning 
at dawn the Germans launched their attack. In 
camouflage work one can't afford to be slipshod. 

The most elaborate camouflage works can be ren- 
dered utterly useless, however, by the carelessness of a 
single soldier, for there is little that escapes the eye of 
the airman's camera, particularly when it was fitted, 
as during the latter days of the war, with a stereo- 
scopic attachment. I remember that in one of the 
Champagne sectors the Germans had installed a bat- 
tery of heavy guns which were so ingeniously concealed 
that the French were unable to locate them. It was 
believed that they were hidden somewhere in a fringe 
of woods along a stream, but though there was a con- 
siderable area of cultivated land beyond the woods, 
the aerophotographs of it showed nothing which would 
suggest a path such as would be made by artillerymen 
going to and from their guns. One day, however, a 
new batch of plates, upon being developed, showed 
a dim gray line, faint as the shadow of a hair, leading 
across this cultivated area to a small wood on the bank 
of the stream, where a battery might easily be con- 



92 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

cealed. Upon studying an enlargement of the pic- 
ture the intelligence officers became convinced that 
the shadowy line on the negative really represented 
the trail left by a soldier crossing the field. Proceed- 
ing on the surmise that the soldier was an artillery- 
man going up to his gun-position, the French gunners 
registered on that particular patch of woods the fol- 
lowing morning, whereupon the fire from the concealed 
battery abruptly ceased. German prisoners captured 
a few days later explained how the secret of the bat- 
tery's position had been kept so long. The German 
security officer had issued orders that the artillery- 
men must under no considerations walk across the 
fields in order to reach their guns, but that they must 
instead follow a much-used highroad until they reached 
a bridge over the stream, drop from the bridge into 
the water, and wade up the stream until opposite their 
position. But one night an artilleryman, in a hurry 
to reach his battery and confident that the tracks left 
by a single man could do no harm, took a chance and 
a short cut across the forbidden field. I have told 
you what happened to his battery as a result of his 
carelessness. Knowing something of German dis- 
cipline, I can imagine what happened to him. 

But it was not often that the Germans were caught 
napping, and so ingenious were some of their ruses and 
stratagems, that it required an intelligence officer with 
the imagination of a Sherlock Holmes to keep up with 
them. During the operations on the Flanders front 
a British aviator brought in some photographs of a 
certain area behind the German lines. The intelligence 



"ESSAYONS" 93 

officer whose duty it was to scrutinize them detected 
a suspicious something which he was convinced was 
a cleverly camouflaged German battery, but though 
it was in the midst of open country there was no sug- 
gestion of a path leading to it. After studying the 
photographs for several hours he suddenly exclaimed: 

" I have it ! They get up to the guns on the covers 
of biscuit-boxes." 

"What do you mean?" his chief asked curiously. 

"It's as plain as the nose on your face," explained 
the youngster. "The Boche knows jolly well that if 
he walked across that open ground his tracks would 
show up in our air photos. So when he wants to get 
up to his battery he gets a couple of wooden biscuit- 
box covers and ties strings to them. He stands on one 
cover and throws the other ahead of him, then stands 
on that and drags up the first cover by means of the 
string and repeats the operation. Deuced clever of 
the beggars, I call it." 

And, as subsequent events proved, the intelligence 
officer was right in his deduction. That was precisely 
what the Germans had done. 

By far the most important work of the Camou- 
flage Corps was the construction of "flat- tops" and 
"false contours." A flat- top, I should perhaps ex- 
plain, is a screen for concealing a gun from enemy 
observation. It consists of a fish-net, usually 37 feet 
square, into the mesh of which are woven and knotted 
narrow strips of burlap of colors to blend with the 
vegetation of the region where the flat-top is to be 
used. The interwoven burlap becomes gradually 



94 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

thinner as the edges of the net are approached, so 
that no sharply defined shadow may be cast. Every 
piece of artillery, large and small, in the A. E. F. had 
its own flat-top, which accompanied the gun every- 
where, being stretched above it, like a canopy, when 
the piece was in action, at other times being rolled 
up and carried on the limber. A somewhat similar 
device was also provided for the concealment of ma- 
chine-guns. It resembled one of those huge umbrellas 
used in summer on delivery- wagons, and, like an um- 
brella, it could be quickly raised or lowered. It was 
the intention of the Camouflage Corps, had the war 
continued, to provide one for every machine-gun. 

A false contour can best be described as the pro- 
longation, by means of burlap spread over a sort of 
wire trellis, of a ridge, promontory, or hill. It being 
desired to place a battery at the foot of a hill and at 
the same time conceal it from enemy observation — 
which included photographs taken from enemy air- 
planes — the Camouflage Corps would first of all erect 
a light wooden framework, something like that of a 
grape or rose arbor, but conforming to the general 
contour of the hill. Over this framework was stretched 
wire netting, which supported, in turn, a finer mesh 
of chicken-wire, into which were woven strips of bur- 
lap dyed so as to exactly match the color of the hill 
itself. The space beneath this burlap screen provided 
perfect concealment for anything up to a battery or 
a battalion, while so closely was .nature imitated in 
the shaping and coloring of the false contour that 
photographs taken by enemy flyers would show only 



I 




s 




Photograph by Signal Corps. U. S. A . 



As the enemy had this road under direct observation, traffic along it was concealed by means of 

burlap screens. 




Photograph by Signal Corps. U. S. A. 

An overhead road screen made of burlap strips and chicken wire. 
THE WORK OF THE CAMOUFLAGE CORPS. 



"ESSAYONS" 95 

an innocent hillside, with not enough vegetation to 
provide cover for a sniper. The burlap used in the 
construction of these false contours was frequently 
''slashed," after the fashion of foliage-drops in theatres, 
and was dyed in a great variety of shades, all of which 
were standardized and could be ordered by number. 
There were burlaps slashed and dyed to imitate 
ploughed fields, grain-fields, roads, lawns, quarries, 
water, rocks, and spring, summer, autumn, and winter 
foliage; in short, every phase of nature as found in 
the zone of operations. 

The first time I visited the big warehouse of the 
Camouflage School at Fort St. Menge, I thought for a 
moment that I was back in the old Eden Mus^e which 
used to stand in West 23d Street, for stacked against 
the walls were scores of lifelike silhouettes of soldiers 
charging with fixed bayonets, while the shelves were 
lined with soldiers' heads beautifully executed in 
papier-mache. The silhouettes, which were of painted 
canvas mounted on light wooden frames, were used in 
the so-called "Chinese attacks" — an idea which we 
borrowed from the British. When it was necessary to 
ascertain how quickly the enemy could switch on his 
artillery-fire in a certain sector, or the location of his 
batteries or machine-guns, a hundred or more of these 
silhouettes would be carried out into No Man's Land 
under cover of darkness and laid down in front of our 
wire in such a manner that they could be pulled upright 
by means of cords running back to our trenches. Just 
at daybreak, at that hour when objects are still indis- 
tinct and when the nerves of the men in the trenches 



96 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

are at the greatest tension, a signal would be given, 
the cords pulled, and a long line of what appeared to 
the startled Germans to be charging Yankees would 
suddenly appear in the mist overhanging No Man's 
Land. Instantly the German trenches would crackle 
and blaze with musketry, the concealed batteries and 
machine-gun nests would betray their positions by 
going into action, and by the time the Huns discovered 
the hoax that had been played upon them, our observ- 
ers had obtained the information which they required. 
Sometimes, in order to further chagrin the Boche, the 
silhouettes would be left standing. 

The papier-mache heads to which I have already 
referred were used for the purpose of locating German 
snipers. When a sniper became particularly annoying 
and defied all attempts to locate him, the camouflage 
officer attached to the division would be summoned. 
Under his direction a papier-mache effigy of a soldier's 
head, steel helmet and all, made so as to move up and 
down in wooden guides, would be set up in that part 
of the trench which the sniper had been annoying. At 
intervals the head would be slowly raised and lowered, 
so that from the outside of the trench it looked pre- 
cisely like a soldier peering cautiously over the parapet. 
Sooner or later the hidden marksman would send a 
bullet through the careless Yankee's brain. The neat 
hole drilled through the papier-mache showed the 
exact direction from which the bullet came, and by 
inserting in the hole a tiny telescope, no larger than a 
pencil, and looking through it by means of a periscope, 
the loophole from which the sniper was firing could be 



"ESSAYONS" 97 

located. In one case a sniper was found to be firing 
through a hole bored in the heel of an old boot, appar- 
ently thrown carelessly onto the glacis. 

Though I have described at some length the use 
of silhouettes and papier-mache heads because they are 
picturesque and interesting phases of modern war, it 
should be borne in mind that they were designed to 
meet exceptional conditions, that they were used in- 
frequently, and that they were in no sense typical of 
the enormously important work of the Camouflage 
Service. 

In the foregoing pages I have sketched the multi- 
tudinous activities of the Engineers only in the barest 
outline. To attempt to compress the story of their 
achievements into the limits of a single chapter would 
be absurd, so I have dwelt only on the most picturesque 
and unusual phases of their work — the high spots, as 
it were. There is much that I have left unsaid, not 
because it is not worth saying, but because I have no 
space in which to set it down. The stories which I 
have had, perforce, to leave untold would in themselves 
fill a volume. Among their other accomplishments the 
Engineers designed a portable steel bridge, made up in 
sections so that it could be transported on trucks, and 
so designed that it could be bolted together, which 
could sustain a load of thirty tons over a span of ninety 
feet. These bridges were used all along the fighting 
front, as our forces advanced, to replace the bridges 
destroyed by the retreating Germans. They had under 
construction, when the war ended, a raft designed 



98 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

for the transportation of the heaviest pieces of mobile 
artillery in existence — by means of which, had neces- 
sity required it, we could have ferried our giant howit- 
zers across the Rhine. The portable floating foot- 
bridges — ^passarelles — ^which our troops used in crossing 
the Meuse and the adjacent canals under fire were in- 
vented by an officer of Engineers. The Engineers 
threw one of them across the Canal de I'Est, near Dun- 
sur-Meuse, under a shell and machine-gun fire so heavy 
that it was twenty-six hours before the infantry could 
cross it. The Engineers have invented a very ingenious 
and remarkable device whereby search-lights can be 
operated from a distance, thus making it possible for 
an officer to control a battery of scattered search-lights 
just as the man in a signal-tower controls, by means 
of levers, the switches in a railway yard. The corps 
has perfected a blasting machine for demolition work 
which destroyed ruins faster than the Huns could 
make them. Military operations are absolutely de- 
pendent upon maps and plenty of them. The En- 
gineers met the demand by erecting and operating in 
France a larger map-producing plant than was pos- 
sessed by France herself or any of the Allies. In order 
to provide a more rapid means of obtaining topograph- 
ical information. Major James W. Bagley, of the En- 
gineers, invented an aerial cartograph or mapping 
camera, which takes three pictures at a time from an 
airplane, mapping a strip of territory three and a half 
miles wide at 5,000 feet elevation, the series of pictures 
thus taken forming a mosaic map of the country over 
which the airplane has flown which is as accurate and 



I 



"ESSAYONS" 99 

far more detailed than a map drawn from surveys. 
This invention opens up an entirely new field for the 
use of airplanes and a possible revolution in former 
methods of mapping. The Engineers likewise produced 
portable machine, blacksmith, and lithographic shops, 
the capacity of the portable lithographic truck-sets 
furnished the 29th Engineers — the Surveying and 
Printing Regiment — being greater than that of the 
permanent map-reproduction plant of the Geological 
Survey in Washington. Mobile sterilizers, water- 
tanks, job-presses, photographic laboratories, derricks, 
pile-drivers, road-sprinklers, and oilers were all asked 
for by the A. E. F., whereupon the Engineers designed 
them and shipped them to France. 

I fully realize that what I have written in the 
preceding pages contains no mention of the supply 
work performed by the corps in the United States, 
which was so enormous that 27 per cent of all the ton- 
nage shipped to France up to the signing of the Armis- 
tice was from or for the Engineers. Furthermore, I 
have touched only here and there upon the activities 
of the corps oversea, where in addition to the enor- 
mous amount of engineering work which had to be 
done with the armies, including fighting, the construc- 
tion of fortifications, and the building of roads, rail- 
ways, and bridges, it executed an incredible amount of 
general construction, such as docks and warehouses, 
railroad yards and railroad bridges, camps and hospi- 
tals, balloon sheds and airplane hangars, not to men- 
tion the installation of water, heating, lighting, and 
sanitary systems. And, bear in mind, the oversea 



loo THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

activities of the Engineers were not confined to France, 
but extended to England, Italy, Russia, and Siberia. 

" Essay ons /" The more I have seen of the work 
of the Engineers, the more appropriate seems their 
motto. 

^'Essayons !" There is apparently nothing that 
these men with the castles on their collars will not 
essay. And everything they essay they accomplish. 



Ill 

THE GAS-MAKERS 

WERE you to grow up with a boy who eventually 
became widely talked about, watching him pass 
from knickerbockers to trousers and from youthful 
shyness to burly aggressiveness, the chances are that 
you would follow his career with an almost proprietary 
interest, and that when you came upon his picture in 
The World's Work or The Police Gazette, according to 
whether he had become famous or notorious, you would 
display it to your friends, explaining proudly: "Why, 
I've known him ever since he was a youngster. I al- 
ways felt sure that he would attract attention some 
day." 

Such, in a manner of speaking, has been my 
acquaintance with poison-gas, or toxic-gas, as the 
chemists call it. I was in the Ypres salient, on the 
British front, when the first gas attack in the history 
of warfare was launched against the Africans and 
Canadians on April 22, 191 5, and that night, in the 
hospitals, I saw the earliest victims of gas warfare, 
gasping on their cots like fish thrown on the bank to 
die. On several occasions during the months which 
followed I again encountered the malign creature— 
on the Yser, in the Champagne, in Alsace, and on the 
Isonzo — and on each succeeding occasion it was more 
threatening and was causing greater concern. So 
that when, after the United States had been at war a 
year or more, I visited the great arsenal at Edgewood, 



I02 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

on the shores of Chesapeake Bay, and was shown the 
vast plants devoted to the production of chlorine, 
chlorpicrin, phosgene, mustard, and other deadly 
gases, and caught the familiar nauseous odor, I felt as 
though I were renewing an old and undesirable ac- 
quaintance. 

I doubt if the Germans started the war with the 
intention of utilizing poison-gas, for they did not in- 
troduce it until nine months after the beginning of 
hostilities, and even then they apparently failed to 
realize the terrible potency of their new weapon, for 
they waited twenty-four hours before following it up 
with a bayonet attack, evidently fearful that the gas 
had not dissipated. As a matter of fact, the gas dis- 
sipated within thirty-five or forty minutes after its 
release, though in that time it annihilated 80 per cent 
of the French, Canadians, and Senegalese opposing it. 
Had the Germans taken instant and vigorous advantage 
of the confusion and dismay created by their unex- 
pected use of chlorine, they could unquestionably have 
broken the Allied front, pushed through to the Channel 
ports, and changed the entire course of the war. (I 
might mention, parenthetically, that the British had 
been warned by a deserter, a week before, that the 
Germans were making preparations for a gas attack, 
but they did not believe him.) But the men in the 
spiked helmets failed to take advantage of the Allies' 
temporary panic; the latter had time to improvise a 
means of defense, and the opportunity of the Germans 
to win the war by the use of gas was gone. So effec- 
tively, indeed, did the Allies turn the new weapon to 



THE GAS-MAKERS 103 

their own uses that, before the close of 19 16, the Ger- 
mans were putting out feelers for the purpose of bringing 
about a cessation of this form of warfare. Then the 
United States entered the war, whereupon all the re- 
sources of American laboratories and chemical manu- 
factories were directed toward the production of gas 
in quantities of which the Germans had never dreamed. 
But, even had the Allies been aware of Germany's 
intention to make use of toxic-gases for military pur- 
poses, they would still have been at an enormous dis- 
advantage, because, as a direct result of her policy 
of giving government assistance to certain industries, 
Germany had several huge gas-plants, connected with 
her dye manufactories, in operation when the war be- 
gan. Now phosgene, which is comparatively easy to 
produce, is used extensively in the manufacture of dyes, 
which explains why the Germans had a virtual mo- 
nopoly of it when they decided to utilize it for the 
promotion of dying instead of dyeing. The German 
Government, it should be remembered, had for years 
subsidized the entire chemical industry of the empire, 
so that when the war began it had at its disposal 
scores of establishments devoted to the production of 
dyestuffs and pharmaceutical preparations, in the pro- 
duction of which certain toxic-gases are an important 
factor, which were converted, literally overnight, to 
military purposes. Though there is no data regarding 
the German gas production available, it was probably 
in the neighborhood of 30 tons a day. It may have 
reached 50 tons, but certainly not more. Though the 
English, realizing how desperate was the situation. 



I04 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

utilized every facility they could command, their total 
daily output of toxic-gases never went above 30 tons. 
The best the French could do was much below this. 
Yet at Edgewood, during the months of September 
and October, 19 18, when the plant had been in opera- 
tion only a few months, the output averaged 140 tons 
a day and would have gone much higher had the war 
continued. In other words, Edgewood Arsenal alone 
produced nearly twice as much gas per day as Germany, 
France, aftd England together. 

Now I wish to lay special emphasis on the fact 
that when the United States decided to manufacture 
gas, and to manufacture it in hitherto undreamed-of 
quantities, we were embarking on strange and un- 
charted seas. We manufactured almost everything 
else under the sun, but of the production of these toxic- 
gases we knew little save in theory, because virtually 
their only commercial value was in the making of cer- 
tain dyes and chemicals, for which we had depended 
almost wholly on Germany. It was a new game which 
we had to learn — and to learn quickly. We found 
ourselves in the position of a baseball-player who is 
unexpectedly called upon to bowl in a game of cricket 
on which the championship depends. But when word 
went out from Washington that chemists were needed 
to beat the Germans at their own game, the masters 
of the retort and the test-tube left their classrooms 
and closed their laboratories and from every corner of 
the republic came flocking to the colors. I am using 
no mere figure of speech when I assert that the mam- 
moth gas industry which was built up from nothing 



THE GAS-MAKERS 105 

in less than a twelvemonth, knowledge of which was 
without question largely contributory to breaking 
down the German morale, was the work of American 
college professors. Some one, an Englishman, if I 
remember rightly, once referred to Germany as "the 
land of damned professors." When their batteries 
and battalions were sent reeling back by American- 
made gas, the Germans must have felt like applying 
the same term to the United States. 

Notwithstanding the remarkable standard of 
efficiency which it ultimately attained, the Chemical 
Warfare Service, or the Gas Service, as it was originally 
called, passed through a checkered and stormy forma- 
tive period. By the close of 191 7, when we had al- 
ready been at war for nine months, there was hardly a 
branch of the American Army which did not have a 
finger in the affairs of gas warfare. The manufacture 
of masks was under the direction of the Medical Corps. 
Gas and shell production was in the hands of the 
Ordnance Department. Alarm devices were produced 
by the Signal Corps. The gas and flame troops formed 
the 30th Regiment of Engineers. Field-training was 
directed by the Sanitary Corps. Research work, an 
extremely important phase, was carried out by the 
Bureau of Mines, a branch of the Department of the 
Interior. And, to complete the decentralization, ar- 
rangements were being made to form a chemical service 
section of the National Army for the purpose of con- 
ducting gas operations overseas. 

There is nothing to be gained by describing the 
long series of misunderstandings, controversies, and 



io6 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

recriminations which constituted the history of gas 
warfare during the early months of 191 8. It is not 
pleasant reading. It is enough to say that the de- 
morahzation resulting from this divided authority, 
taken in conjunction with the introduction by the 
Germans of mustard and other new gases, and the dif- 
ficulty which the English were experiencing in obtain- 
ing a sufficient supply of chlorine, brought about a 
situation which caused grave alarm to all who were 
familiar with the situation in Europe. The two chief 
obstacles in the way of a complete reorganization of 
the service were the Ordnance Department, the chief 
of which was unwilling to permit all of the gas activities 
of Ordnance to be controlled by an external author- 
ity, and the Bureau of Mines, which refused to permit 
its chemists and its organization to be absorbed by the 
War Department. Though at that time it was im- 
possible to modify the attitude of the Bureau of Mines 
in regard to its control of research, the Chief of Ord- 
nance did his best to improve conditions within his 
own department by placing Colonel William H. Walker, 
assistant director of the Gas Service and former pro- 
fessor of chemical engineering at the Massachusetts 
Institute of Technology, in complete control of gas 
production, including the operation of the great 
plant at Edgewood, the branch factories throughout 
the country, and the experimental field at Lakehurst, 
New Jersey. The manner in which this college pro- 
fessor brought order out of chaos at Edgewood and 
its related plants, directed the activities of 7,000 sol- 
diers and 8,000 civilian workmen, settled labor troubles, 



THE GAS-MAKERS 107 

obtained material, completed and put into operation 
the largest toxic-gas plant in existence, and, by his 
insistence on manufacturing at Edgewood all types 
of gases, including a large proportion of the basic 
chlorine, made the government independent of manu- 
facturers and contractors, was one of the most re- 
markable accomplishments of the war. 

In May, 19 18, Major-General William L. Sibert, 
Corps of Engineers, who had commanded the First 
Division in France, was appointed by the President as 
director of the Gas Service for the express purpose of 
reorganizing that service and placing it on a footing 
commensurate with the importance it was now realized 
to have. General Sibert promptly took the position 
that, if he was to assume this responsibility, there 
could be no further divided control; all gas production 
and all research work must be in his hands. Ensued 
then lengthy discussions between the War Department 
and the Department of the Interior, enlivened by news- 
paper articles and speeches in Congress, as to whether 
the research chemists of the Bureau of Mines should 
pass under military control, but General Sibert's atti- 
tude remained unshaken and, on July 13, 191 8, all 
branches of the work connected with gas warfare were 
placed under his control as chief of the Chemical War- 
fare Service, henceforward a complete and separate 
branch of the army. 

When the United States entered the war, none of 
the toxic-gases used by the warring nations, with the 
exception of chlorine, had been prepared in this coun- 
try except on a very small scale and as laboratory ex- 



io8 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

periments. The War Department was faced, therefore, 
with the immediate problem, not only of developing 
methods for the manufacture of these gases on a large 
scale, but also of putting these methods into execution. 
Gases, the preparation of which even in very small 
quantities was prohibited in many laboratories on 
account of their highly dangerous character and which, 
for the same reason, the Railroad Administration re- 
fused to transport except by special trains, were now to 
be produced by the thousands of tons. But how? 
There was no suitable machinery for the purpose to 
be had in the United States; everything must be de- 
signed and built to order. And where were the thou- 
sands of workmen who would be required to come 
from? Why should a man exchange the safety of a 
shipyard, where he was getting undreamed-of wages, 
for the perils of making poison-gas? It was indeed a 
stupendous problem which the government was facing. 
Yet there was no time to mull the question over, as a 
judge mulls over a point of law, for every day brought 
word of an increasing use of gas by the Germans. 

It was the original intention to interest existing 
chemical firms in the manufacture of the required 
gases, with the hope of obtaining from them the entire 
supply required. As the project developed, however, 
difficulties arose which prevented the carrying out of 
this programme. The director-general of railroads 
ruled, as I have just said, that the gases could only be 
transported by special train movement, and this would 
entail great difficulty, delay, and expense. More seri- 
ous objections were encountered, however, in the 



THE GAS-MAKERS 109 

efforts to enlist the co-operation of the chemical manu- 
facturers. The methods for the production of toxic- 
gases on a large scale were quite unknown, the manu- 
facturers explained, and to discover and develop satis- 
factory processes would necessarily require extended in- 
vestigations. The companies also realized that there 
would be great danger to the lives of those employed 
in the work, that fatalities were almost certain to re- 
sult, and they were unwilling to run the risk of the 
interminable lawsuits which are usually incidental to 
the settlement of such cases. Moreover, only a limited 
number of firms had the personnel and the experience 
necessary to undertake the difficult problems involved, 
and these firms were already crowded with war work 
and were unwilling to assume additional responsibility, 
particularly of such a character. And, finally, it was 
recognized that the manufacture of toxic-gases would 
be limited to the duration of the war, and that the 
processes involved, as well as the plants necessary for 
carrying out these processes, would have little value 
after the war was over. 

Meanwhile the Ordnance Department had ap- 
proved of a plan to utilize a portion of a tract compris- 
ing 35,000 acres, near Aberdeen, Maryland, on Chesa- 
peake Bay, which had just been acquired by the govern- 
ment for a proving-ground, for erecting a suitable plant 
for filling shell with poison-gas — though at that time 
it had not been determined where the gas itself was to 
come from. As soon as it became evident that the 
necessary quantities of gas could not be obtained from 
private firms, the War Department decided to erect 



no THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

and operate its own gas-plants on a peninsula of the 
Aberdeen Reservation, known as Gunpowder Neck. 
This peninsula, consisting of about 3,500 acres, which 
was admirably suited for the purpose by reason of its 
remoteness from centres of population, its security, and 
its facilities for rail and water transportation, was 
named Edgewood Arsenal. 

Only those who saw the low-lying, swamp-lined 
shores of Gunpowder Neck during the winter and spring 
of 1917-1918 can fully picture the obstacles with which 
our gas-makers were confronted. Have you ever seen 
a Virginia road after the spring rains ? Yes ? Imagine, 
then, this Virginian clay mixed with Mexican adobe and 
diluted with New Orleans molasses and you will have 
a slight idea of the nature of the soil over which enor- 
mous quantities of material had to be hauled and on 
which was erected the greatest manufactory of poison- 
gas in the world. It may be recalled, moreover, that 
the winter of 1917-1918 was the severest in the mem- 
ory of the oldest inhabitant. For weeks on end the 
shores of the Chesapeake resembled the shores of 
Greenland, but, in spite of cold and mud and rain, in 
spite of apparently insurmountable difficulties in ob- 
taining building materials and in securing transporta- 
tion for those materials on the congested railways, in 
spite of strikes and labor troubles of every kind, the 
work forged steadily ahead, officers and men working 
themselves as a negro teamster works his mules. Scores 
of miles of roads were built and metalled, a network of 
railways was laid down, and over them snorted panting 
locomotives hauling endless caravans of freight-cars. 



THE GAS-MAKERS iii 

The building sites were illuminated by hundreds of 
arc-lights, the working force was divided into shifts, 
and the reservation resounded both night and day to 
the creak of derricks, the clatter of riveters, and the 
rasp of saws. A total of 558 buildings were constructed 
on the grounds of the arsenal, including, in addition to 
the huge structures of steel and concrete which com- 
prised the filling and the various chemical plants, 
36 cantonments with quarters for 8,400 men, 3 field- 
hospitals, a base hospital with more than 400 beds, 
bunk-houses for civilian workmen, officers' barracks, 
Y. M. C. A. and Knights of Columbus huts, and one of 
the most completely equipped laboratories in the coun- 
try. Edgewood is, in reality, a collection of great 
manufacturing plants, with all that implies in housing, 
sanitation, heating, storage, hospitalization, and other 
agencies. And the work was done by men every one 
of whom, from the commanding officer down, was in 
civil life when the war began. Not a single officer 
or man of the Regular Army had any responsibility 
for the construction or operation of Edgewood Ar- 
senal from the day that the ex-professor of chemistry, 
Colonel Walker, assumed command, until its opera- 
tions were terminated by the Armistice. 

Any one who has had practical experience in 
manufacturing well knows that it is usually a long 
step from laboratory experimentation to factory pro- 
duction, a step which it often takes months and some- 
times years to make and which is frequently beset 
with all manner of difficulties and problems. But 
there was no such time at the disposal of the Edge- 



112 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

wood gas-makers. In all their experiments they were 
never permitted to slack up on production. The need 
was too vital. Our armies in France were clamoring 
for gas, gas, gas. There were no existing models for 
much of the machinery needed, but the corps of bril- 
liant young men with whom Colonel Walker had sur- 
rounded himself invented as they went along. Yet, 
as a result of the experiments at Edgewood, numerous 
new and more economical processes were discovered. 
The slow and dangerous water-cooling method of pro- 
ducing phosgene, as followed in Europe, was supplanted 
by an entirely new system and a plant was perfected 
which could turn out forty tons of this gas every 
twenty-four hours. When the Edgewood plant was put 
into operation the government was paying one dollar 
and fifty cents a pound for phosgene, but when the 
Armistice was signed we were manufacturing it at the 
theretofore unheard-of price of ten cents per pound 
and would have brought it to an even lower figure had 
the production been continued. The systems devised 
for filling, painting, and marking the shell were mar- 
vels of mechanical ingenuity. These discoveries were 
not intended for commerce. They were the result of 
patriotic effort on the part of the workmen to see the 
nation excel in the particular thing in which it was 
then engaged — war. They were the outgrowth of im- 
patience over slow and dangerous methods, or a desire 
to do the work in hand a little better or a little more 
quickly than it had been done before — a quality in- 
herent in the American character. 

It is a remarkable commentary on the efficiency 



THE GAS-MAKERS 113 

of the Edgewood organization that notwithstanding 
the fact that the manufacture of poison-gases in quan- 
tity was a new industry in the United States, that the 
machinery was improvised or designed from the ground 
up, that the workmen were without previous experi- 
ence — many of the drafted men, mind you, were fresh 
from offices, stores, and farms — and that they were 
engaged in a peculiarly hazardous occupation, only 
four fatalities were directly traceable to poisoning by 
gas. This should not be construed as minimizing the 
peril attached to the work, however, for, though every 
possible precaution was observed in the construction 
and operation of the plants, there were 925 casualties 
between June and December, 1918, of which 674 were 
due to mustard-gas. During the month of August, 
when the gases were most volatile as a result of the 
excessive heat (during that month the mercury stood 
at 106 degrees for three days in succession), and when 
the weather caused the soldiers to somewhat relax 
their precautions, the hospitals were on several days 
filled at the rate of 3^ per cent of the entire force of 
the mustard-gas plant, though this rate of casualties 
was not maintained, of course, throughout the entire 
month. I might add that several of the divisions which 
took part in the St. Mihiel offensive sustained a con- 
siderably smaller percentage of losses, which shows 
that the dangers of the war were not entirely monopo- 
lized by the men who served in France. 

Long before the chemical plants were completed it 
became evident that civilian labor could not be utilized 
in their operation. Not only was such labor difficult 



114 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

to obtain, but the wages were abnormally high, the 
work was, as a whole, extremely inefficient, and it was 
virtually impossible to maintain the discipline and 
secrecy imperative to the success of the undertaking. 
Moreover, it was found that such civilian labor as was 
available could not be depended upon to work in the 
chemical plants because of the danger attending the 
manufacture of such highly poisonous materials. It 
was decided, therefore, to utilize enlisted men. As the 
project progressed, increasing numbers of soldiers from 
the National Army were detailed to the arsenal, the 
force reaching a strength of 7,400 at one time. The 
soldiers, no matter how much they disliked the work, 
could not quit like the civilian laborers; they had lio 
option but to obey orders, and so, morning after morn- 
ing, they rose at the siunmons of the bugles in the dim 
light of early dawn, hurried through their breakfasts at 
the long tables in the mess-halls, and marched to theiT 
respective tasks, whether making chlorine, chlorpicrin, 
phosgene, or mustard gas, filling or painting shell, 
working in the great refrigerating-plants through which 
the shell were passed to be chilled before filling, load- 
ing trains and boats, building roads, digging ditches, 
or firing boilers — all for thirty dollars a month. To 
the men who wore the blue-and-yellow hat-cords of 
the Chemical Warfare Service, the men who performed 
their dangerous work without advertisement and with- 
out public recognition, is due the gratitude of the na- 
tion. 

The chief activities of the great arsenal on the 
Chesapeake consisted, as I believe I have already men- 



I 



THE GAS-MAKERS 115 

tioned, of the manufacture of four types of toxic-gas — 
chlorine, chlorpicrin, phosgene, and mustard — and 
the filling of shell with these gases. Now I have not 
the slightest intention of entering upon a technical 
account of the complicated processes by which these 
gases were produced. Though no doubt interesting 
to chemists, it would make dry reading for others. 
It will suffice for the purposes of this book to sketch 
in briefest outline, and in simple words, the chief char- 
acteristics of the principal toxic-gases and the methods 
followed in their manufacture. 

Chlorine, which is the first gas the Germans used 
and which is an important constituent of nearly all the 
other toxic-gases, is derived from ordinary table-salt. 
It is prepared by passing a current of electricity through 
a solution of salt, by which process chlorine is liberated 
and caustic soda formed. At ordinary temperatures 
chlorine is a greenish-yellow gas of strong, suffocating 
odor, but by means of cold and pressure it can be 
readily condensed to a liquid and is usually shipped in 
that form, stored in strong cylinders. The apparatus 
in which the salt is decomposed by the electric current 
is known as a cell. The salt, upon arrival at the arsenal, 
was taken to the brine building and dumped into large 
concrete tanks kept partially filled with water, the 
resulting brine being drawn off, purified, and pumped 
to the cell-house as needed. The interior of this 
building was fiUed with cells, nearly 4,000 in aU, 
through which was passed a direct current of approxi- 
mately 260 volts. The chlorine thus extracted from 
the brine was liquefied by compressing it through the 



ii6 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

agency of a falling column of sulphuric acid and then 
cooling the compressed gas by refrigeration. Though 
chlorine has long been manufactured in the United 
States for chemical purposes, a constant supply of it 
was so essential for the preparation of the other gases 
that Colonel Walker insisted that it should be produced 
at Edgewood, thus making the government independent 
of private manufacturers. 

Chlorpicrin, while not so poisonous as some of 
the other gases, is, nevertheless, an active poison and 
has, in addition, pronounced lachrymal (tear-produc- 
ing) and nauseating qualities. Though chlorpicrin is 
fatal when taken in large quantities, it is almost im- 
possible to inhale much of it because of its terribly nau- 
seating effect. The inhalation of four cubic inches of it 
causes violent vomiting. Chlorpicrin is produced by 
the action of picric acid upon chlorine in the form of 
bleaching-powder. The bleaching-powder, after be- 
ing diluted with water to the consistency of thick cream, 
is mixed with a solution of calcium picrate in large 
stills holding 5,000 or more gallons. A jet of live steam 
is introduced at the bottom of the still and the reaction 
begins at once, the resulting chlorpicrin passing out 
of the still into condensers. This mixture of chlor- 
picrin and water is then run into tanks. As chlor- 
picrin does not dissolve in water, it gradually settles 
to the bottom and is drawn off and loaded directly into 
the shell. 

Phosgene, the next member of the poison-gas 
family, is the deadliest of the lung-gases, killing al- 
most as quickly as cyanogen. It is produced by the 



THE GAS-MAKERS 117 

combination of two other gases, chlorine and carbon 
monoxide. The reaction is effected in iron boxes, 
lined with lead and filled with charcoal, into which a 
stream of chlorine and carbon monoxide, mixed in 
proper proportion, is introduced. The colorless gas 
which results is phosgene. It is condensed to a liquid 
by passing it through a condenser surrounded by brine 
kept cold by refrigeration and is then either stored in 
strong steel containers or run directly into the thirty- 
pound cyhnders known as Livens' dnmis. These 
drums are fired from a sort of mortar, called a pro- 
jector, and are extremely effective for producing heavy 
concentrations of gas up to a range of 1,500 yards. 

The compound commonly referred to in chemical 
warfare as "mustard-gas" is known to chemists as 
dichlorethylsulphide. Its nature is as formidable as 
its name. It has a distinctive smell, like garlic rather 
than mustard. It has no immediate effect on the eyes, 
beyond a slight irritation, but after several hours the 
eyes begin to swell and inflame and practically blister, 
causing the most intense pain; the nose discharges 
freely, and severe coughing and even vomiting ensue. 
Direct contact with the spray causes blistering of the 
skin so severe that it is virtually burned. Even when 
protected by masks and specially made clothing, it is 
impossible for troops to remain for more than eight 
hours in an area which has been bombarded with 
mustard-gas. Dichlorethylsulphide, to use its correct 
name, is produced by blowing ethylene-gas into liquid 
sulphur monochloride in large iron reaction vessels. 
Contrary to the popular impression, this gas contains 



ii8 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

no mustard. The details of devices and methods for 
introducing the ethylene and sulphur monochloride 
into the vessels, the removal of the product, the neces- 
sary agitation and cooling of the mass, and the like, 
were frequently changed during the development of 
the process and had not reached a final form even 
when the Armistice was signed. Nevertheless, when 
the war ended, Edgewood was producing 30 tons of 
mustard-gas a day and a rapid increase up to 100 tons 
daily was practically assured. 

Though the Germans began their use of gas by 
releasing it from cylinders, depending upon the wind 
to carry it over the enemy's lines, these "cloud attacks," 
as they were called, did not prove satisfactory and were 
eventually discontinued, for great difficulty was ex- 
perienced in getting the heavy cylinders up to the front 
and installing them in the trenches, and favorable winds 
could not be depended upon. It seems likely, indeed, 
that the Germans failed to recognize the significance 
of the meteorological records and charts of northern 
France, which show that 75 per cent of the prevailing 
winds are from a southerly or southeasterly direction, 
thus leaving the Germans only 25 per cent of the time 
in which they could use their gas without danger of its 
being blown back over their own lines. It was in 
order to overcome these meteorological conditions that 
the Germans evolved the idea of loading the gas into 
shell, usually in the form of liquid, which turned into 
gas when it came into contact with the air upon the 
explosion of the shell, and firing these shell from guns 
or mortars, thus enabling them to place the gas wherever 



THE GAS-MAKERS 119 

they desired without reference to the weather. During 
the last two years of the war, barring a few isolated 
instances, gas was used in no other way. 

The filling of shell was, therefore, one of the most 
important of Edgewood's many activities. Let me 
explain to you, as simply and briefly as possible, how 
the shell were filled with phosgene. 

The empty shell, after inspection, were loaded on 
trucks together with the required number of loaded 
boosters. (A booster, it should be explained, is the cap 
or stopper containing a charge of high explosive, usually 
TNT or dynamite, which is screwed on the nose of 
the shell after it has been filled with gas, much as a metal 
top is screwed onto a bottle. Just before firing, a fuse 
is inserted in the booster, igniting the explosive, which 
in turn shatters the shell, thus releasing the gas.) 
The trucks with the empty shell were then run by 
electric locomotives to the filling buildings. Here the 
shell were transferred to a conveyer, a sort of moving 
platform, which slowly moved through a room kept 
cold by refrigeration. About thirty minutes was re- 
quired for this operation, during which time the shell 
were cooled to a temperature of about zero. This 
chilling of the shell was made necessary because phos- 
gene has a low boiling-point. It was imperative, there- 
fore, that the temperature of the shell be kept consider- 
ably below the boiling-point of phosgene in order that 
the latter should remain in liquid form while the filling 
was taking place. The chilled shell were then trans- 
ferred to trucks and hauled by motor through the filling- 
tunnel to the filling-machines. Here the phosgene, kept 



I20 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

in liquid state by refrigeration, was run into the shell 
by automatic machines. The truck then carried the 
filled shell forward a few feet, at which point the 
boosters were screwed into the noses of the shell by 
hand. The final closing of the shell was then effected 
by motors operated by compressed air. The fiUed shell 
were next conveyed to the shell-dump, where they 
were classified and stored for twenty-four hours, nose 
down on skids, in order to test them for leaks. The 
following day the shell were again placed on conveyers 
which carried them through a painting-machine, where 
air-brushes gave them a coat of elephant gray and 
striped them with the distinctive bands of color which 
denoted the type of gas they contained. The methods 
followed in fiUing shell with chlorpicrin were similar 
to those for phosgene except that refrigeration was un- 
necessary. The peculiar properties of mustard-gas, 
however, required an entirely different filling system. 
Edgewood Arsenal also had separate plants for filling 
the stannic-chloride hand-grenades used for ''mopping 
up" trenches; for filling both shell and grenades with 
white phosphorus for use in forming smoke-screens to 
conceal the movements of advancing troops, and for 
loading the incendiary drop-bombs used by the Air 
Service. 

The various plants which I have just described by 
no means comprised the whole of Edgewood 's activities, 
however, for, in order to obtain a sufficient supply of 
bromine, certain compounds of which are excellent 
tear-producing materials, a series of brine-wells was 
sunk at Midland, Michigan; a plant for the production 



THE GAS-MAKERS 121 

of another lachrymator, brombenzyl cyanide, was 
erected at Kingsport, Tennessee; and an establish- 
ment for the manufacture of diphenychlorarsine — an 
arsenical material used in gas warfare because it pro- 
duces violent sneezing, thus causing the troops to re- 
move their gas-masks and thereby exposing them to 
the effects of the toxic-gases used in combination with 
the arsenicals — was started at Croyland, Pennsyl- 
vania. 

As a matter of fact, the great mother-plant on 
Chesapeake Bay had branches and ramifications of 
which the public had scarcely an inkling, so carefully 
were the details of our gas production guarded. I 
have already pointed out that it was the original in- 
tention to secure the entire supply of toxic materials 
from existing chemical plants, and that it was only 
after this plan was found to be imfeasible that the 
decision to build government plants was reached. 
This decision did not signify, however, that no such 
material would be obtained from existing firms. On 
the contrary, it was decided to utilize such firms 
whenever it was possible to secure their co-operation. 
But as the products desired had never been prepared 
on a commercial scale in this country, it was impossible 
to forecast with accuracy the cost of their manufacture. 
As a result, the co-operation of the existing chemical 
concerns could be secured only on the condition that 
the government would finance the work. These plants, 
therefore, though they continued to be operated by 
their owners, became in fact government plants, being 
financed by the government, representatives of the 



122 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

War Department being stationed at each establish- 
ment to supervise their administration and look after 
the government's interests. At first they were under 
the direction of the trench warfare section of the 
Ordnance Department, but, under a later order, they 
were made a part of Edgewood Arsenal and placed 
under the administration of its commanding officer. 
The list of these outside plants, with their official 
designation and the product manufactured in each, is 
as follows: 

Edgewood Arsenal, Niagara Falls Plant: Manu- 
facture of phosgene. 

Edgewood Arsenal, Midland (Mich.) Plant: Sink- 
ing of brine-wells for the purpose of securing 
adequate supplies of bromine. 

Edgewood Arsenal, Buffalo Plant: Manufacture of 
mustard-gas. 

Edgewood Arsenal, Bound Brook (N. J.) Plant: 
Manufacture of phosgene. 

In addition to the above, the following outside 
plants were not only built (or were in process of con- 
struction at the date of the Armistice) but were operated 
as well by the government. Their location at points 
other than Edgewood was decided upon partly because 
of the fact that it was thought wise to have at least 
two plants for the manufacture of each important 
material located at different places, since an accident 
at one would in no way interfere with production at the 
other. These government-owned establishments were: 



THE GAS-MAKERS 123 

Edgewood Arsenal, Stamford (Conn.) Plant: Manu- 
facture of chlorpicrin. 

Edgewood Arsenal, Hastings (N. Y.) Plant: Manu- 
facture of mustard-gas. 

Edgewood Arsenal, Kingsport (Tenn.) Plant: Manu- 
facture of brombenzyl cyanide. 

Edgewood Arsenal, Croyland (Pa.) Plant: Manu- 
facture of diphenychlorarsine. 

In addition to these nine great outlying plants, with 
their thousands of workmen, there was the splendidly 
equipped Research Department at American Univer- 
sity, on the outskirts of Washington; the Experimental 
Field and Proving-Ground near Lakehurst, New Jersey; 
and the Army Gas Schools at Camp Kendrick, New 
Jersey, and Camp A. A. Humphreys, Virginia. 

The tract of land near Lakehurst taken over for 
experimental purposes was 5 miles long and 4 wide and 
had an area of nearly 14,000 acres. As the nearest 
habitation was 2jf^ miles away no difficulty was ex- 
perienced in conducting the highly important experi- 
ments with the necessary secrecy. The camp included 
quarters for 50 officers and barracks for 800 men, a 
completely equipped chemical laboratory, the staff of 
which included expert glass-blowers who could make 
every kind of apparatus required, a meteorological 
station, commanded by a former official of the Govern- 
ment Weather Bureau, equipped with the latest ap- 
paratus necessary for making and recording meteoro- 
logical observations, a mechanical shop containing 
lathes, drills, and tools for making repairs of every 



124 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

description, an ice-making plant, a post hospital, a 
goat hospital, a dog hospital, a dog kitchen, and en- 
closures for animals which had to be kept under ob- 
servation for long periods. In order to determine the 
effects of the various gases on living subjects a large 
stock of animals — goats, dogs, cats, rats, mice, guinea- 
pigs, and monkeys — had to be kept constantly on 
hand. These animals were not obtainable in the 
necessary numbers without considerable difficulty, 
it being necessary, on one occasion, to send an officer 
to Mexico to purchase 1,500 Angora goats, experiments 
having shown that the goat possesses powers of resis- 
tance to gas which more nearly approximate those of 
a human being than does any other common animal. 
Representatives of these various animal types were 
placed in trenches modelled after those on the Western 
Front and bombarded with different forms of gas-sheU, 
those which remained alive being subjected to close 
observation, sometimes for many days, by the experts 
of the Pathological and Physiological Department. 
A human note enters into this grim business of pre- 
paring for war in the fact that those animals, partic- 
ularly the dogs, which survived such an experiment 
were not subjected to it again. I imagine, however, 
that the officials of the S. P. C. A. would have entered 
a vigorous protest had they been permitted to lift the 
veil of secrecy which for many months enveloped the 
operations of the Chemical Warfare Service at Lake- 
hurst. 

The new methods and devices in gas warfare which 
were developed by the great corps of scientists and 



THE GAS-MAKERS 125 

laboratory experts attached to the American University 
Experiment Station were given practical trials at Lake- 
hurst, where they were tested under conditions ap- 
proximating as nearly as possible those of actual war- 
fare. Here experiments were carried out to deter- 
mine the value of gas-shells bursting in the air instead 
of b}^ impact, the value of mixing toxic or lachrymatory 
gas with shrapnel, the value of 14-inch naval shell 
filled with a combination of high explosive and 
toxic substance, and the value of clouds of poison- 
smoke. Had the war continued, I imagine that the 
results of some of these experiments would have given 
the Germans the surprise of their lives. 

Though the gas production of Edgewood Arsenal 
from August to November, 1918, increased from 450 to 
675 tons a week, and though the filling-plant had a 
weekly capacity of nearly 1,000 tons, less than 100 tons 
of gas was actually filled into shell weekly. This 
unfortunate state of affairs was due to the failure of 
the Ordnance Department to supply enough, or nearly 
enough, shell and boosters to keep pace with the pro- 
duction of gas. In other words, there was far more 
gas than there were shell to put it in, and far more 
shell than there were boosters for them. During the 
early summer of 1918, large quantities of this surplus 
gas were shipped overseas and there loaded into shell, 
but later instructions were received to stop all ship- 
ments in bulk except a limited amount of chlorine. 
From that time on, the production of gas was limited 
by the number of shell and booster available, because 
it is impossible to store toxic-gases in any large quan- 



126 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

titles. In fact, at all times after the manufacture of 
poison-gases began in the United States, the supply 
of such materials was not only in excess of the supply 
of shell and booster, but the gas-plants could not 
be operated to their full capacity because there was 
no way of utilizing the maximum output. 

Do you remember how often, during the months 
immediately following our entrance into the great 
conflict, one heard the assertion made that American 
inventive genius would eventually produce a weapon 
so dreadful, so potent, that it would end the war be- 
cause flesh and blood would be unable to withstand 
it? It was asserted, with a wealth of circumstantial 
detail, that Mr. Edison had been locked up for weeks 
in his New Jersey laboratory perfecting a device for 
the wholesale slaughter of the Huns which would startle 
the world. But, as the war continued on its bloody 
course, the public faith in inventors gradually waned 
and the American people settled down to a realization 
that victory could be achieved only by man-power, 
munitions, and food. Yet the persons who talked so 
glibly of some startling discovery which would paralyze 
the efforts of the enemy and abruptly end the war 
little realized how near to the truth their imaginations 
led them— for the government actually had in its pos- 
session the secret of a weapon so terrible that, had it been 
used, it would probably have ended the war. 

The story of how the secret came into the posses- 
sion of the government is a curious one. Years ago 
a student of chemistry, then living in a foreign coun- 
try, while carrying on a series of laboratory experi- 






THE GAS-MAKERS 127 

ments, stumbled upon a chemical combination which 
almost cost him his life. It was a compound never 
before made, or, at least, never recorded. Later the 
chemist came to the United States, but it was not 
until he read of the use of toxic-gases by the Germans 
that he recalled his all but fatal experiment of many 
years before. He kept silence, however, until Amer- 
ica's entry into the war, when he imparted his formula 
to the government. The chemist's assertions of what 
his compound could accomplish were at first received 
with considerable scepticism, but this scepticism ab- 
ruptly disappeared when the reports from the Re- 
search Division of the Chemical Warfare Service at 
American University, where the formula was developed, 
were received. So appalling was its nature, indeed, 
that the War Department at first refused to permit 
the use of the weapon thus strangely placed in its hand 
on the ground that the nation using it would be guilty 
of inhumanity. But in July, 191 8, following the whole- 
sale use of mustard-gas against our troops by the Ger- 
mans, the scruples of those in power disappeared and 
orders were given that quantity production of the 
new toxic material should immediately be begun. 

This super-gas, as it has been termed, was known 
to the Chemical Warfare Service as G-34, though it 
was more commonly referred to as methyl, a name 
which was given it because it in no way suggested the 
true character of this newest and deadliest of poisons. 
It has also been dubbed ''Lewisite" because it was 
developed from the original formula to a stage which 
made it practicable for military use by Professor W. 



128 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

Lee Lewis, chief of the Defense Department of the 
Research Division of the Chemical Warfare Service. 
Methyl, or Lewisite, is an oily, amber-colored liquid, 
with an odor which vaguely suggests that of the 
geranium. It is somewhat more volatile than mustard- 
gas, being comparable in that respect to benzol. In- 
stead of being inoffensive at first contact, like mustard, 
it starts an acute pain which quickly becomes unen- 
durable. A single drop spilled on the hand will pene- 
trate to the blood, attacking first the kidneys, then 
the heart and lungs. It hardens the cell-tissues of 
the lungs and causes simultaneously strangulation 
and a weakening of the heart which result in speedy 
and violent death. If taken into the lungs by inhala- 
tion in any perceptible quantity it kills almost in- 
stantly, the victim dying in terrible agony. // is esti- 
mated to be seventy-two times deadlier than mustard- 
gas. 

The manufacture of methyl was carried on in an 
abandoned motor-car plant at Willoughby, Ohio, a 
suburb of Cleveland, the work being in charge of 
Colonel F. M. Dorsey, who, before the war, was a 
chemical engineer in the employ of the General Elec- 
tric Company. Every step in the process of manu- 
facture was enveloped in the most profound secrecy. 
Every workman who entered the stockade surround- 
ing the plant did so under a voluntary agreement not 
to leave the eleven-acre space until the war was won, 
though this arrangement was later modified upon the 
men promising upon their honor not to divulge the 
nature of the product or even the existence of the plant. 



THE GAS-MAKERS 129 

All mail was censored and even the use of the word 
Willoughby in correspondence was forbidden, letters 
for the officers and men connected with the plant being 
addressed to a lock-box in Cleveland. There was no 
recreation, the work was hard and danger was always 
present, the men working with their gas-masks con- 
stantly at the ''alert" position. Though none of the 
masks designed for protection against chlorpicrin, 
phosgene, or mustard were of the slightest avail against 
methyl, the safety of the workers was ensured by 
specially designed masks and clothing. Had we used 
methyl against the Germans, however, it is extremely 
unlikely that they would have succeeded in devising 
a means of protection against it — at least in time to 
save themselves. 

The methyl, as manufactured, was loaded into 
both shell and drums. The shell, of 155mm. caHbre, 
contained about ten pounds of the liquid, which be- 
comes a gas upon contact with the air; the drums, 
which held from 350 to 400 pounds each, were to be 
dropped from airplanes. It is estimated that half a 
hundred of these drums, judiciously distributed, would 
exterminate the entire population of Manhattan Isl- 
and. When the Armistice was signed methyl was 
being produced at the rate of approximately ten tons 
a day and the plant at Willoughby was two months 
ahead of its schedule, orders having been given that 
3,000 tons should be in France, ready for use, by March 
I, 19 19. It was well for Germany that she quit when 
she did. Had methyl been turned loose against the 
Huns, civilization would have had its revenge on the 



I30 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

assassins of the Lusitania, on the fiends who ravaged 
France and raped Belgium. 

Within forty-eight hours after the signing of the 
Armistice the work of dismanthng the plant at Wil- 
loughby had begun, and ten weeks later its demoU- 
tion was complete. A special train, running at night 
under heavy guard, carried the hundreds of tons of 
methyl which had already been produced, in iron 
containers, to Edgewood Arsenal, where it was trans- 
ferred to a steamer, taken out to sea, and lowered into 
three miles of salt water. But the formulas and proc- 
esses for manufacture still exist, locked away in the 
great vaults of the War College in Washington, so, 
if the nation is ever again forced to take up arms, it 
has at hand the most terrible weapon ever devised 
for the purpose of wholesale slaughter. 

Notwithstanding the fact that toxic-gases had 
been in almost constant use by the European belhger- 
ents for two years before the United States entered 
the conflict, the declaration of war found us totally 
unprepared to commence the manufacture of the gas- 
defense equipment with which every soldier going 
overseas must be provided. Such an article as a gas- 
mask had never been produced in this country, the 
sum total of American knowledge on the subject hav- 
ing been obtained from the masks brought back as 
souvenirs by war correspondents and displayed in 
shop-windows and from the pictures in the illustrated 
papers. Incredible as it may seem, in view of the enor- 
mously important role which gas was playing on the 
European battle-fields, only a single American army 



THE GAS-MAKERS 131 

officer, Major L. P. Williamson of the Medical Corps, 
had studied the subject of gas defense, and he had 
done so on his own initiative. Thus it came about 
that within a few days after the declaration of war, 
the military authorities, confronted by the imperative 
necessity of providing our expeditionary forces with 
gas-defense equipment, were conducting a frantic search 
among the various scientific departments of the govern- 
ment to discover one possessing the necessary facilities 
for handling the problem. The Bureau of Chemistry 
did not have the personnel to carry on the work and 
the Department of Agriculture did not have the neces- 
sary apparatus, but the Bureau of Mines at Pittsburg 
possessed some experience in kindred problems arising 
from mine-rescue work, and it also had adequate facili- 
ties for handling the experimental work involved. It 
was, therefore, selected for the purpose. The research 
facilities at Pittsburg soon proved inadequate, how- 
ever, and in the summer of 191 7 there was taken over 
the American University Experiment Station, near 
Washington, where virtually all of the research work 
connected with the numerous branches of the Chemical 
Warfare Service was conducted. The Research Divi- 
sion, instead of being dismissed with passing mention, 
is deserving of a chapter to itseK, the services which 
it performed in the development of gases, protective 
equipment, and manufacturing processes having been 
of enormous assistance in the prosecution of the 
war. 

When, in May, 191 7, the need arose for providing 
masks for the first contingent of the American Expedi- 



132 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

tionary Forces, the War Department appealed to the 
Bureau of Mines to provide 25,000 masks within 
three weeks. Emboldened by the valor of ignorance, 
the officials of the bureau jauntily undertook the task, 
making arrangements for the fabric to be produced 
by a rubber company at Akron, Ohio, and for the masks 
to be assembled at a factory in Brooklyn. Instead of 
producing 25,000 masks in three weeks, however, the 
best they could do was to produce 20,000 in two months. 
These were immediately shipped overseas. But the 
rubberized fabric of which they were made was easily 
penetrated by chlorpicrin vapor, therefore affording 
very little protection, and they were returned unused. 
''The only thing about them which is satisfactory," 
General Pershing is said to have remarked, "is the 
strap around the neck." But the experience thus 
gained opened the eyes of the authorities to the gravity 
of the problem, so that when, in July, 191 7, the army 
itself took up the manufacture of gas-masks, it was 
with a more complete realization of the magnitude 
of the task by which it was confronted. One of the 
first steps taken by the War Department, upon as- 
suming charge of mask production, was to give a 
colonel's commission to Mr. Bradley Dewey, an oflSicer 
of the American Can Company, and to place him in 
command of the Gas Defense Service, as it was then 
called, but which, upon the organization of the Chem- 
ical Warfare Service, became the Gas Defense Divi- 
sion. Thanks to the energy, resourcefulness, and busi- 
ness abihty of Colonel Dewey, backed by the efficiency 
and enthusiasm of the great organization which he 




MAN AND HORSE COMPLETELY PROTECTED AGAINST POISONOUS GAS. 

In addition to the mask, the man is wearing an anti-mustard gas suit, gloves, and boots. 
The horse is provided with boots and a gas maslc. 










c :i 



ii cfl 



5P< S a 



H c H 






D 



as 















THE GAS-MAKERS 133 

created, the American forces in France were protected 
against gas by masks which, as proved by actual field 
tests, gave twenty times the protection afforded by those 
worn by the Germans. 

It is essential that a mask, or respirator, to use 
its correct name, should remove all traces of gas or 
smoke from the air before it reaches the eyes, nose, 
or mouth of the wearer. The principal features of 
the mask of the "Box Respirator" type, as used by 
the American forces throughout the war were: 

(a) A canister of metal containing both neu- 
tralizing and absorptive chemicals and a smoke filter. 
The air to be breathed passes in through an inlet check 
valve and through chemicals and smoke filter. 

(b) A flexible rubber-hose through which the 
purified air passes from the canister to the face-piece. 

(c) A face-piece, effectively covering the eyes, 
cheeks, lower forehead, nose, mouth, and chin, pro- 
vided with eye-pieces permitting vision and a harness 
to hold the face-piece in place. 

(d) An exhalation valve which affords easy dis- 
charge of exhaled air and at the same time instantly 
closes upon inspiration. 

{e) A knapsack slung from the neck or shoulder, 
in which the mask and canister are carried. 

In the box respirator type, the inhaled air, passing 
through the canister and hose, went directly into the 
mouth through a rubber mouth-piece, which in this 
manner offered protection to the lungs in the event of 
the face-piece being damaged or not fitting. The mask 
was also provided with a spring and rubber clamp 



134 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

which closed the nostrils and compelled the wearer 
to breathe entirely through the mouth. 

While the box respirator was in process of manu- 
facture, much thought and effort was devoted to de- 
veloping a mask which would combine with its safety 
and good vision a greater measure of comfort, it being 
particularly desired to eliminate the nose-clip and 
the mouth-piece, which are the box respirator's most 
uncomfortable features. The starting-point in these 
attempts was the French Tissot mask, several modi- 
fications of which were put into production. The best 
mask of this type was designed, curiously enough, by 
a New York corset manufacturer, Major Waldemar 
Kops, whose name was given to his invention, which 
is known as the K.T. or Kops-Tissot mask. One hun- 
dred and eighty-nine thousand of the K.T. masks, 
which were radically different and far more comfort- 
able than the box respirator type, had been manu- 
factured when the Armistice was signed. The total 
number of masks produced by the Gas Defense Divi- 
sion was more than three and a half million. 

The mask-makers were confronted at an early 
period with the problem of finding a charcoal of suf- 
ficient density to absorb the toxic fumes, the wood- 
charcoal which was used in most of the French and 
British masks being very far from satisfactory. After 
considerable experimentation it was discovered that 
a charcoal having sufficient absorptivity could be 
produced from the shell of the cocoanut, whereupon 
officers were despatched to the Hawaiian Islands and 
the British West Indies to arrange for large shipments 





— - 


M 


- —' 


41- 

* \ ■• 


if 





TESTING RESPIRATORS OUTSIDE THE GAS CHAMBER. 




TESTING GAS MASKS INSIDE THE GAS CHAMBER. 



THE GAS-MAKERS 135 

of cocoanut- shells to the United States. The supply 
thus obtained proved entirely inadequate, however, 
whereupon the Chemical Warfare Service issued an 
appeal to the American public to save the shells of 
Brazil nuts, hickory-nuts, and walnuts, the pits of 
peaches, prunes, apricots, and cherries, and the seeds 
of dates, the collection of the pits and shells being under- 
taken by the Red Cross, the Boy Scouts, and kindred 
organizations. Placards and receptacles were put in 
pubhc places throughout the country and almost im- 
mediately fruit-pits began to pour in by the ton, every 
family making it a point of honor to save its pits "for 
the boys fighting overseas," as they proudly put it. 
There were numberless cases of old ladies who sent 
in by mail a few peach-pits which they had conscien- 
tiously saved and which they had cleaned as carefully as 
though they were jewels. As it required 7 pounds of 
pits and shells to make the charcoal for a single mask, 
3,500 tons were used in the million masks which we sent 
overseas. 

Because it was realized that the slightest flaw 
or imperfection in a finished mask might well mean 
the death in agony of an American soldier, an ex- 
tremely rigid system of inspection was devised. It was 
discovered, for example, that all thread holes must be 
filled with gelatine, in order to prevent the gas from 
being carried through by the thread; that wrinkles in 
the band around the face and head permitted gas to 
leak inside the face-piece; that the mouth-piece must 
be reinforced with bushings so that the soldier would 
not bite it in the excitement of a gas attack and there- 



136 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

by cut off his own breath. Only the most painstaking 
and conscientious women — usually those having hus- 
bands or sons at the front — were chosen for the work 
of final inspection, and, even after they had examined 
each mask in every detail it was again inspected over 
a bright light in a dark booth for small pinholes which 
might have escaped the ordinary visual inspection. 
And, in order to make the inspectors doubly careful, 
they were frequently required to go into the gas-cham- 
bers wearing masks chosen at random from those they 
themselves had passed. To obtain absolute results 
as to the protection afforded by a mask, however, 
breathing tests in a gas-chamber had to be employed. 
This testing was done by enlisted men of the Gas De- 
fense Division, who spent many hours each day test- 
ing masks and canisters in the gas-chambers, some- 
times working in a concentration of phosgene as high 
as I per cent. Without hope of glory or promotion, 
without the lure of decorations, these men day after 
day, month after month, risked their lives in order 
that their fellows at the front might have a better 
chance to live. Though they wore silver instead of 
gold chevrons, they are as deserving of thanks and 
admiration as the men who broke the Hindenburg 
line or battled in the Forest of the Argonne. 

Though the earlier gas-masks were manufactured 
in Brooklyn, and later in Philadelphia, the operations 
of the division expanded so rapidly that by November, 
1 91 7, it became evident that it was no longer prac- 
ticable for a commercial organization to carry on the 
manufacture of this new and vitally important article 



THE GAS-MAKERS 137 

of equipment in the quantities demanded by the new 
army programme, and it was consequently deemed 
advisable to establish a government-owned and con- 
trolled organization. In pursuance of this policy, the 
work of mask manufacture was transferred in Novem- 
ber to Long Island City, the plant expanding in seven 
months from a floor space of 157,000 square feet to 
1,000,000 square feet, or 23 acres. When the Armistice 
was signed the Gas Defense Division had a personnel 
of 274 officers, 2,353 enlisted men, and 13,000 civilians. 
Much of the work was done by women, and, as a traitor 
could have worked irreparable damage by tampering 
with the masks, the employees were selected only after 
the closest investigation by the Military Intelligence 
Division of their antecedents and affiliations. From 
the very outset the officers in charge of mask produc- 
tion conducted a campaign for efficiency based on 
patriotism. The walls of the factory were hung with 
copies of a poster depicting a soldier dying from gas 
as the result of a defective mask ; it bore the grim and 
suggestive title ^'The Last Inspection." Lectures and 
motion-pictures were used to emphasize the horrors 
of death by gas. And everywhere were placards bear- 
ing the admonition: "Remember that your careless- 
ness may cost the life of your husband, your son, your 
brother." 

It is not generally appreciated, I think, that gas 
warfare has tactics all its own. For example: In 
preparing for an infantry attack the Germans were 
accustomed to first concentrate all their guns on our 



138 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

batteries. After a brief but intensive bombardment 
of our artillery positions a portion of the German bat- 
teries would abruptly switch their fire onto our in- 
fantry, using, of course, a large proportion of gas- 
shell. Meanwhile the German infantry officers had 
been notified as to the kinds of gas their batteries were 
using, and where. Hence, when the German storming 
troops swept forward they did not wear masks, for 
their officers knew that a non-persistent gas had been 
used against the point which was to be attacked. Our 
troops, being ignorant of this, however, had donned 
their masks when the first gas-shell came over, and 
were, therefore, both fatigued and hampered when they 
were called upon to resist the assault. 

And here is another example of gas tactics : Word 
having reached the French that the Germans were 
planning to attack a certain sector near Rheims, the 
troops holding this portion of the line were quietly 
withdrawn from the front trenches the night before the 
attack was to take place, a few autoriflemen being 
left to simulate a defense. Before the troops departed, 
however, they placed mustard-gas shells, which had 
been fitted by the artillery with electrically controlled 
fuses, in the dugouts. The French gunners had, 
meanwhile, ascertained to a foot the range of the 
trenches which were being evacuated. At daybreak 
came the expected German attack. As the hebneted 
figures came swarming across No Man's Land in the 
dim light of early dawn the few remaining French- 
men set off green rockets as a signal to the artillery and 
took to their heels. No sooner had the Germans oc- 




TRAINING FOR GAS WARFARE. 
Troops wearing gas masks charging in open order in practice at Long Island City. 




CUTTING THEIR W.'^Y THROUGH BARBED-WIRE ENTANGLEMENTS WHILE 
TRAINING WITH GAS MASKS. 



THE GAS-MAKERS 139 

cupied the evacuated trenches, therefore, than the 
French batteries turned loose on them a hurricane of 
steel, putting down a barrage which completely cut 
them off from their own lines. The Germans naturally 
sought shelter from this shell-storm in the deserted 
dugouts. At about the same moment a French artil- 
lery officer pressed his finger upon a button, an electric 
current leaped along a buried wire, the shells in the 
dugouts were blown asunder, liberating the poison- 
gas — and the Germans perished almost to a man. 

As the result of the experiments at American Uni- 
versity, Lakehurst, and Edgewood, and the experiences 
of our troops in the field, several new gases of incredible 
deadliness were invented as well as numerous new 
methods of using them, many of which would certainly 
have been utilized had the war continued. But the 
League of Nations being still confined to paper, and 
universal disarmament being still in the distant future, 
it is as well, I feel, not to particularize about them. It 
is enough to say that, thanks to the work of the Chemi- 
cal Warfare Service, there are stored away in the vaults 
of the War Department certain plans and formulas 
which, in the event of another war — which God forbid ! 
— would give us a weapon of undreamed-of potency 
and terror. Speaking from first-hand knowledge, I 
can assure any potential enemies of the United States 
that the chemical warfare which we are prepared to 
wage should the necessity ever arise again would make 
our recent gas activities, vast as they were, seem like 
a joke. 



IV 
THE "Q. M. C." 

SOME years ago there was exhibited at the Grand 
Salon in Paris an immense mural painting, in- 
tended, if I remember rightly, for one of the walls of 
the Pantheon. I think it was by Detaille, but of that 
I am not certain nor does it matter. The canvas, 
which reached from floor to ceiling, was of such vast 
dimensions that the gallery, huge as it is, did not per- 
mit of a satisfactory perspective; it was characterized, 
moreover, by such a wealth of detail that one might 
look at it from dawn to dusk and yet not grasp it all. 
So in attempting to depict, even in the sketchiest 
fashion, the operations and activities of the Quarter- 
master Corps, I find myself embarrassed by the same 
limitations. The composition is too vast for proper 
perspective, too rich in variety and detail to be grasped 
by the imagination. The best that I can hope to do, 
therefore, in the limited space at my disposal, is to 
hurry you along, like the guides who used to conduct 
visitors through the galleries of the Vatican in an hour, 
pointing out a picturesque feature here and calling your 
attention to something of interest there — touching only 
on the high spots, as it were. 

To begin with, let me give you some conception 
of the subject's magnitude and importance. The total 
cost of the war to the United States, plus the estimate 
of the amount which would be required to carry it on 

to July I, 1919, was approximately $16,500,000,000, 

140 



THE "Q. M. C." 141 

while the total expenditures and estimates of the 
Quartermaster Corps for the same period were some- 
thing over $8,500,000,000. Thus it will be seen that 
the expenditures atid requirements of the Quartermaster 
Corps comprised more than half of the total expenditures 
and requirements of the entire army. The purchases 
which it made were remarkable not only for their un- 
precedented volume but for their amazing variety. It 
supplied the armies of the United States with practi- 
cally everything they required, save only ordnance, its 
purchases running all the way from coal to needles, 
from lemon-drops to rolling kitchens, from sheet-music 
to beef and mutton on the hoof. At one time it con- 
stituted the entire wool trade of the United States, if 
not, indeed, of the whole Western Hemisphere, for it 
optioned every pound of wool in sight and sent its 
agents out with orders to buy up the excess wool of the 
earth. It purchased enough cotton goods to make a 
sheet which would cover the District of Columbia four 
times over. It controlled the leather trade of the 
nation. It operated the largest shirt-factory in exist- 
ence. It developed the most highly specialized shoe 
ever made, purchased 33,000,000 pairs of them, car- 
ried them in 120 sizes, and opened schools to teach its 
officers the science of shoe-fitting. By enlisting the 
co-operation of a score of universities it established a 
great correspondence school for the education of quar- 
termaster officers. It had other schools, a whole sys- 
tem of them, where training was given in cooking, bak- 
ing, butchery, and coffee-roasting. It purchased every 
stock of rubber boots and rain-coats in the United 



142 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

States. It established and operated farms and truck- 
gardens at the various camps and cantonments. By 
organizing a Salvage Service for the reclamation of 
articles which would otherwise have been thrown away 
it saved 151,000,000 of the taxpayers' dollars. The 
army needed horses and mules — thousands and thou- 
sands of them — whereupon the Quartermaster Corps 
gave commissions to half a hundred of America's best- 
known sportsmen and gentlemen riders and sent them 
to the West, to Spain, to the Argentine, to purchase 
animals. General Pershing cabled that he wanted 
sheet-music for the 390 bands of the A. E. F., where- 
upon the Quartermaster Corps, not being itself musi- 
cally inclined, looked about for a man who was. It 
was discovered that the most successful composer of 
popular music in America had enlisted in the Coast 
Guard, but the Quartermaster Corps borrowed him, 
told him to select the sort of music that he thought the 
boys in France would like, and send it to Pershing. 
He did. It cheered up the army overseas and cost the 
government $50,000. It was cheap at the price. The 
Quartermaster Corps educated manufacturers in the 
production of articles strange to their experience, and 
in some cases it developed entirely new industries. It 
was a shipmaster, a wool-grower, a coal-operator, a 
clothier, a builder of vehicles, a school-teacher, a re- 
former of labor conditions, an inventor of new products, 
and an originator of new methods. To the miners of 
Pennsylvania, quarrying coal in the low-roofed gal- 
leries by the light of their flickering lamps, to the fruit- 
pickers in the sun-drenched orchards of Hood River 



THE "Q. M. C." 143 

and the Santa Clara, to the pallid clothing-workers, 
bending over their machines in the stifling sweat-shops 
of the New York Ghetto, to the great manufacturers 
of New England, and to the beef barons of the Middle 
West, "Quartermaster Corps, United States Amry," 
was a phrase to conjure with. 

In those casual, comfortable, easy-going days be- 
fore the Great War startled us out of our national com- 
placency, when the work of the army consisted in gar- 
risoning many small and widely scattered posts and in 
doing police duty on the Canal Zone or in "the Islands," 
the Quartermaster Corps, the "Q. M.," as it was fa- 
miliarly called, occupied much the same relation to 
our little military establishment that a "general store" 
does to a village. By this I mean that it supplied 
most of the army's wants. It was charged, to put it 
briefly, with clothing, feeding, housing, and paying the 
army, supplying it with horses, harness, vehicles, and, 
in short, virtually everything else save only the actual 
tools of war. It also manned and operated the steam- 
ers of the Army Transport Service, was charged with 
the movement of troops on land, and had jurisdiction 
to a large extent over motor transportation, especially 
the movement of supplies. Though its business meth- 
ods were as antiquated as the quill pen and the copy- 
ing-press, like the mules which drew its wagons it 
jogged unconcernedly along. If the colonel's wife 
needed some shelves in her kitchen she sent for the 
quartermaster and they were put up with neatness 
and despatch. When the junior oflacers at a post 



144 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

wanted to attend a dance in town the quartermaster 
could always be depended upon to provide a convey- 
ance. The quartermaster ran the post exchanges and 
canteens. If there was a delay in the delivery of the 
winter's coal, if the bread was poorly baked, if the milk 
was sour, if the men's shoes did not fit, if there was a 
leak in a barracks roof, if a horse developed a spavin, 
if the pay-checks were not received on time, it was the 
quartermaster who had to take the blame. He was 
all things to all men, and if he did not do all things as 
well as they might have been done, it was not his fault 
so much as the fault of the antiquated and cumber- 
some system in which he had been trained. 

But upon the outbreak of war this state of affairs 
underwent a sudden change. It was no more possible 
for the Quartermaster Corps, as it was then organized, 
to feed and clothe and transport overseas an army of 
5,000,000 men than it would be for a village merchant 
to meet the demands which would be made upon him 
if oil were discovered in the vicinity and the village 
expanded into a city overnight. At the outbreak of 
the war the Office of the Quartermaster- General con- 
sisted of five divisions — Administrative, Finance, Sup- 
plies, Construction, and Transportation — but when our 
stupendous military programme began to assume defi- 
nite form it became increasingly apparent that no sin- 
gle department could successfully direct so many and 
varied activities, and that the Quartermaster Corps 
must confine itself to the huge task of purchase and 
supply. The first step toward its reorganization along 
these lines was the divorce of the Construction Divi- 



THE "Q. M. C." 145 

sion, which was made a separate branch of the War 
Department under Colonel (later Brigadier-General) 
I. W. Littell, who reported directly to the secretary 
of war. Though the officers of this division, to which 
was assigned the tremendous task of constructing 
the camps and cantonments for our new armies, con- 
tinued to wear the insignia of the Quartermaster Corps, 
and though they were known as construction quarter- 
masters, they had no connection with the Office of 
the Quartermaster-General. During the first year 
of the war the Transportation Division operated a 
considerable fleet of vessels engaged in the transport 
of troops, animals, and supplies, but in April, 1918, 
this division was abolished, the entire transportation 
service being taken from the Quartermaster Corps 
and placed with the Purchase, Storage, and Traffic 
Division of the General Staff. The next branch to be 
lopped off was the Finance Division, the functions of 
which were transferred to the newly organized Office 
of the Director of Finance, who assumed charge of 
all financial matters for the army. In response to 
the constantly increasing demands for motor trans- 
port, a Motor Transport Service was added to the 
Quartermaster Corps in April, 191 8, but was taken 
away from it three months later and established as 
a separate branch of the army under the title of the 
Motor Transport Corps. This is, however, strictly 
an operating unit and should not be confused with 
the Motor and Vehicles Division of the Quartermaster 
Corps. By this time the ''Q. M." had been so com- 
pletely transformed as to be almost unrecognizable 



146 THE ARMY BEHmD THE ARMY 

to men who had grown old in the service. Little re- 
mained of the old organization, indeed, save the name, 
and even that all but disappeared when, in October, 
1918, the Office of the Quartermaster-General was 
merged in the newly organized Office of the Director 
of Purchase and Storage. By the concluding month 
of the war, therefore, the old Quartermaster Corps 
had lost all control over construction, finance, and 
transportation, so that of its original five divisions 
only the Administrative and SuppHes remained. The 
latter had been expanded, however, into nine pur- 
chasing divisions and there had also been added to 
the organization — now commonly referred to as "Pur- 
chase and Storage" — five storage divisions and a Salv- 
age Division. At the same time that the Office of the 
Director of Purchase and Storage assumed the func- 
tions of the Quartermaster Corps it also took over 
the procurement activities of the Medical Corps and 
of the Corps of Engineers, as well as procuring certain 
standardized articles for the Signal Corps and the 
Ordnance Department, thus bringing under a single 
head all the purchase, storage, and distribution agencies 
of the army. In order to make this extremely involved 
relationship a Httle clearer, I ought to explain, perhaps, 
that the Office of the Director of Purchase and Storage 
is one of the three chief operating branches of the Pur- 
chase, Storage, and Traffic Division of the General 
Staff, the others being the Office of the Director of 
Traffic and the Office of the Director of Finance. 

In the old days the procurement activities of the 
army were decentralized to such an extent that every 



THE "Q. M. C." i4l 

depot, camp, and post, wherever situated, had charge 
of procuring practically everything it used except uni- 
forms, the procurement being under the direction of 
the camp or post quartermaster, as the case might be. 
The new organization has produced a system, however, 
whereby everything required by the army is purchased 
either by the officers in charge of the thirteen General 
Supply Zones into which the United States has been 
divided, or direct from Washington. It is scarcely nec- 
essary to comment on the enormous saving in time, 
money, and labor thus effected. We will now say 
"Amen" to this Httle sermon on organization, which is 
a dry subject at best, and turn to more interesting 
topics. 

Of the countless problems which confronted the 
Quartermaster Corps at the outbreak of the war, by 
far the most important was that of feeding the army, 
for an army, as Napoleon inelegantly but truthfully 
put it, travels upon its belly. The American soldier, 
like the American small boy, is a prodigious eater and 
he is always hungry. He is, moreover, extremely finical 
about the quality and variety of his food. He has 
been accustomed from boyhood to have unrestricted 
access to the cooky jar and the cake-box, and things 
were wrong, indeed, when there were not at least three 
kinds of mother's pies on the top shelf in the pantry. 
He laughed at danger and jeered at hardships, but in 
return he expected a grateful Uncle Sam, as repre- 
sented by the Quartermaster Corps, to show the same 
consideration for him when it came to a question of 



148 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

food that his mother had always done. And Uncle 
Sam measured up to his expectations. Not only was 
the American soldier given all the food that he required 
— at the time of the Armistice approximately 10,000,000 
pounds of food were being sent every day to the troops 
in France — ^but he had the best food in Europe. In 
those lean days of 191 8, when it was impossible to 
obtain a spoonful of sugar in the smartest restaurants 
in Paris, and when the manufacture of pastries of every 
description had been prohibited by law, the Yankee 
doughboys always had full sugar-bowls and unlimited 
quantities of pies, cake, and puddings. Indeed, it is 
not the slightest exaggeration to say that the American 
enlisted man had a considerably better mess than most 
French generals. I know, for I have eaten with both. 
Never before has an army been called upon to 
send subsistence so great a distance to so many men. 
It was obviously impossible to ask France and Eng- 
land to provide for our rapidly increasing armies from 
their own scanty stores, for those countries were already 
rationing their civilian populations. The food had, 
therefore, to be obtained in the United States, some of 
it being transported 6,000 miles before reaching the 
mess-tables of the A. E. F. Moreover, in order to 
provide against the possibility of the food-ships being 
torpedoed or the capture of the base depots, it was 
necessary to send two pounds of food where one would 
ordinarily have answered. To make things worse, as 
the demands for food increased, the available tonnage 
decreased. The utmost economy in space became so 
imperative, indeed, that inspectors from the Packing 



THE ^'Q. M. C." 149 

Service Branch were stationed at the various depots 
with instructions to pay particular attention to the 
thickness of lumber used in the packing-cases and to 
insist on the utilization of every cubic foot of spare 
space, as, for example, the boilers in rolling kitchens, 
which were filled with various articles of subsistence 
supphes. Even the marmites — the camp cooking- 
pots — were filled with beans, peas, and other dry 
stores. When, in the spring of 191 8, the Germans 
launched that tremendous offensive which has been so 
fittingly called "the charge of a nation," and every 
available ton of shipping was required for the transport 
of the troops which we were rushing overseas to stem 
the Teutonic onslaught, all canned fruits and vege- 
tables — spears, apples, pineapple, peas, corn, asparagus, 
sweet potatoes — were stricken from the lists, such 
space as was available being filled with boneless beef, 
dried fruits, dehydrated vegetables — and tomatoes ! I 
do not mean to imply that such mainstays as the "four 
B's" — bread, bacon, beef, and beans — were sacrificed 
for the juicy fruit of the tomato-vine, for they were 
not, but tomatoes were regarded as such an important 
item of the soldier's menu that, notwithstanding the 
poverty of space, their shipments, instead of being 
diminished, were increased. In addition to the cus- 
tomary ways of serving them, thousands of cans were 
taken up to the line to relieve the soldier's thirst, a 
quart of tomato juice being more effective than a gallon 
of water. Lest you should get the impression, from 
what I have just said, that there was a shortage of 
beans, I might mention, in passing, that 75,000,000 



I50 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

cans of baked beans with tomato sauce were put in 
the hands of the army cooks, and in order to provide 
against any possible lack of this stand-by, there was 
purchased to supplement them 77,000,000 pounds of 
dried beans. I have never heard an American soldier 
complain that he did not have enough beans. Fore- 
seeing the enormous demand which there would be 
for prunes and dried apricots and apples, the quarter- 
master-general summoned from his ranch in the Santa 
Clara Valley of California, where he was living in 
pleasant retirement, the foremost authority on dried 
fruits in America, informed him of the army's needs, 
and gave him carte blanche to fill them. He sent over- 
seas enough prunes to have supplied all the boarding- 
houses in America for years to come. Coffee was an- 
other important item. The British Army consumed 
enormous quantities of tea, the Italians depended 
largely upon their cheap native wines, and the French 
drank an alleged coffee which was really camouflaged 
chicory, but the American troops were given real coffee 
— the best that money could buy. Nothing better 
illustrates the quality of the food served to our men 
than the following telegram, sent by the quarter- 
master-general of the A. E. F. to Washington. 

"Ship 2,000,000 reserve rations packed in her- 
metically sealed galvanized iron cases, 25 to the case, 
meat to be substituted in lieu of bacon and choice 
George Washington coffee or other similar substitute 
in lieu of ground coffee." 

As even the best grades of coffee can be ruined if 
improperly prepared, there were established at Camp 



THE "Q. M. C." 151 

Meade and Camp Johnston schools for coffee-roasting. 
Here enhsted men were given a course of instruction 
in coffee roasting, blending, grinding, and packing, and 
upon graduation were sent to the various camps where 
coffee-roasting plants had been installed. Thus the 
soldier received a fresher and a better cup of coffee 
than ever before, and the government made a saving 
of from two to three cents a pound, for as the green 
coffee was shipped to the camps by the various Zone 
Supply officers and was roasted every day, there was 
practically no overhead expense incurred. 

Beef is, of course, the chief muscle and fat-produc- 
ing food, the army allowing 456 pounds of beef per 
year for each soldier. This does not mean, however, 
that the soldier actually eats that amount of beef 
annually, for, just as the currency of the country is 
based on the gold standard, the meat ration of the 
army is based on the beef standard. It is customary, 
therefore, to substitute pork, usually in the form of 
bacon, for 30 per cent of the beef ration, twelve ounces 
of bacon being equivalent to twenty ounces of beef. 
The balance of the meat ration consists for the most 
part of fresh beef, when it is procurable, supplemented 
by canned beef, corned beef, and canned hash. The 
meat-cutting for the army is performed by Butchery 
Companies, the personnel of which was trained at 
Camp Joseph E. Johnston, near Jacksonville, Florida, 
where a practical course of instruction was given in 
cutting meat by the so-called "natural-guide method." 
By following this method, which is an expanding rather 
than a cutting process, inexperienced men who did not 



152 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

know a cleaver from a skewer were made into practical 
meat-cutters in less than two months. The curriculum 
of the School for Butchers also included a course of 
intensive training in the boxing of boneless frozen beef 
by a method which saved about 32 per cent storage 
and cargo space and was used extensively during the 
winter months. With the return of peace, graduates 
of this unique educational institution, many of them 
illiterate, find themselves as well qualified to take up 
the butcher's trade as though they had wielded a 
cleaver and worn a white apron all their lives. 

In spite of all that has been written by travellers 
and novelists about certain American delicacies — the 
ham of Virginia, the chicken of Maryland, the pies 
and doughnuts of New England, the pompano of New 
Orleans — the fact remains that Americans, as a people, 
are not good cooks. This assertion may be ridiculed 
by some of my readers, but, generally speaking, it is 
true. Almost any Frenchman can prepare from the 
cheapest materials a well-cooked and tempting meal; 
the ability of most Americans in the culinary art is 
confined to boiling eggs. A man who spends his days 
in an office can sit down to a breakfast consisting of 
soggy biscuits, poorly prepared coffee, and an omelet 
that looks and tastes as though it were made of chrome 
leather, and though it may affect his disposition it 
will not seriously affect his work, for when the noon- 
hour comes around he can go over to Delmonico's or 
step into Childs's, as his tastes and pocketbook may 
dictate, and restore his balance of digestion by a well- 
cooked meal. But the soldier had no such resource. 



THE "Q. M. C." . 153 

There were no Delmonicos or Childses at the front. 
He had to eat what was given him. And as his vigor 
and staying powers depended on his food, it was essen- 
tial that that food should be well cooked. To tell the 
truth, the Italian debacle of 191 7 was due as much 
to poor and insufficient food as it was to Austrian 
propaganda, for nothing affects morale like an empty 
stomach. 

When war was declared the Regular Army and 
the National Guard already had, of course, their com- 
plements of experienced cooks and bakers, though in 
wholly insufficient numbers, but the huge National 
Army had nothing of the sort. One of the earliest and 
most pressing problems of the Quartermaster Corps, 
therefore, was to train sufficient numbers of men for 
this work, which it did by expanding the fourteen 
Cooks' and Bakers' Schools of the regular establishment 
to twenty and by starting new schools at the various 
National Army cantonments. Before these schools 
could be successfully operated, however, it was neces- 
sary to obtain an adequate staff of instructors, who 
themselves had to be trained, the plan being to give at 
least one officer in each regiment or separate battalion 
sufficient training to make him competent to conduct 
a school for cooks and bakers in his own organization. 
As a result of this system of culinary education, within 
a year after the first American troops set foot in France 
the Quartermaster Corps had trained 1,200 instructors 
in cooking, 16,000 mess sergeants, and 50,000 cooks, in 
addition to which there were 40,000 others who, though 
they had not received sufficient training to give them 



154 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

a cook's rating, were nevertheless entirely competent 
to prepare food. From the soldiers thus trained there 
were organized about seven-score Bakery Companies, 
more than half of which saw service overseas. Now 
that these hundred-odd thousand cooks and bakers 
have returned to civil life, there is reason to hope that 
there will be manifested a striking improvement in the 
quality of the national cooking. It may be that, as a 
result of this war-enforced training, we will be able to 
look forward to taking a meal in a railway restaurant 
or in a small-town hotel without dread and, perhaps, 
even with pleasure. 

The food for the troops in cantonments, camps, 
and rest billets was, of course, prepared in permanent 
camp-kitchens, which usually possessed aU the facilities 
and sometimes a far greater serving capacity than the 
kitchens of great hotels. As the front was approached, 
however, the problem of preparing food became in- 
creasingly difficult, particularly in the areas which 
were being systematically harassed by the enemy's 
artillery and airplanes. To have erected kitchens in 
such areas would have been to invite their destruction. 
In order to provide hot food for soldiers occupying 
these exposed positions, as well as for troops on the 
march, recourse was had to rolling kitchens — les cuisines 
roulantes, as the French called them. Each kitchen, 
which was drawn either by a mule-team or by a trac- 
tor, consisted of a stove and limber. The stove con- 
tained a bake-oven and three kettles, thus permitting 
of four kinds of food being prepared simultaneously. 
The limber, which was a two-wheeled cart to which 



THE "Q. M. C." 155 

the kitchen was attached, was fitted with four bread- 
boxes which could also be used for water, a cook's 
chest containing a set of culinary utensils which would 
make a housewife envious, four kettles, and four fire- 
less cookers. The fireless cooker was, I think, first 
used for military purposes on the Italian Front; at 
least that was where I first saw it. It was an invalu- 
able contrivance, as it permitted food to be prepared 
many hours in advance in the back areas and yet served 
piping hot to the men on the firing-line. 

For use under heavy fire or other conditions which 
made it impossible to serve the men with hot food 
from the rolling kitchens, the trench ration, consisting 
of tinned meat, hard bread, and soluble coffee, together 
with salt and sugar, was designed. The food was 
packed in hermetically sealed, gas-proof, camouflaged 
iron containers, each of which held twenty-five ra- 
tions, each ration in turn consisting of enough food 
to maintain a soldier for one day, sustaining his full 
strength and vigor. The food used in the trench ra- 
tion was the very best that money could buy. In- 
deed, it became a matter of pride with the employees 
of the great plants where the trench rations were 
prepared to use exceptional care in selecting the in- 
gredients for them, for it was realized what good food 
meant to the tired and mud-caked men who were hold- 
ing the Frontier of Freedom. The office force of one 
of the big packing-houses learned from a shipping- 
clerk that the interstices between the tins in the 
packing-cases were being filled with excelsior, so they 
took up a collection, to which every one from presi- 



156 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

dent to office-boy contributed, and used the money 
to fill those interstices with tobacco and cigarettes. 
When the officers of the Subsistence Division heard 
of this they thought so well of the idea that orders 
were issued that the empty space in all trench-ration 
containers should be filled with tobacco thereafter. 
Scores of such incidents, trivial enough in themselves, 
showed how the hearts and thoughts of the nation 
were with the boys who were fighting overseas. 

Every American soldier when he went into ac- 
tion carried in the upper left-hand pocket of his blouse 
a small flat tin — no larger than the pocket Bible which 
the sob-story writers always place in that same pocket 
to stop the fatal bullet — bearing on its lid the legend: 
"U. S. Army Emergency Ration. Not to be opened 
except by order of an officer, or in extremity." This 
was the American equivalent of the "starvation ra- 
tion" of the European armies. To it many a man 
caught in a shell-hole between the lines or lost in the 
Forest of the Argonne owed his life. Its contents 
represented the results of many experiments and much 
experience and the combined suggestions of scientists, 
food experts, and soldiers. The emergency ration con- 
sists of three rather dubious-looking cakes of prepared 
beef combined with a bread compound made of ground 
cooked wheat, weighing three ounces each, three 
ounces of chocolate, three-quarters of an ounce of fine 
salt, and a dram of black pepper. There are almost 
as many ways of preparing the ration as there are of 
preparing an egg. The bread-and-meat cakes can 
be eaten dry — provided one is sufficiently near starva- 



THE "Q. M. C." 157 

tion. When boiled in three pints of water they make 
a palatable soup, and when the water was obtained, 
as was frequently the case, from shell-holes and ditches, 
the pepper and salt served to disguise the muddy flavor. 
Where water was scarce, only a pint of it was needed 
to transform the cake into a sort of porridge, some- 
thing like cornmeal mush, which could be eaten hot 
or cold or which could be sliced and fried, circum- 
stances and the Germans permitting. The chocolate 
could be made into a drink by dissolving it in hot 
water, or it could be eaten as candy. 

Candy, by the way, formed one of the most ac- 
ceptable items of the American soldier's ration, half 
a pound being issued to each man every ten days. In 
December, 1918, the Subsistence Division shipped to 
the A. E. F. more than 10,000,000 pounds of candy — 
the largest exportation of its kind on record. Don't 
get the idea that this was "grocer's candy" — the kind 
that comes in wooden buckets. It was nothing of 
the sort. No society girl, sitting in a box at a matinee, 
munched better chocolates than the American sol- 
dier. Moreover, the same chocolates which sold for 
a dollar a pound in the candy-stores of America could 
be bought for forty-eight cents a pound in the can- 
teens of the A. E. F. Stick-candy and lemon-drops 
which ordinarily sold for seventy cents a pound at 
home were sold to the soldiers for twenty-eight cents. 
I say sold, for the pound and a half of candy which 
was a part of every soldier's ration rarely satisfied 
the sweet tooth of the doughboy. Though everything 
in the confectionery line from peppermints to caramels 



158 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

was provided, lemon-drops were the soldier's favorite. 
They were to the Yankee doughboy what gum-drops 
were to Doctor Cook's Esquimaux. They devoured 
them at the rate of a hundred tons a month ! At the 
beginning of the war it was found that most of the 
lemon-drops manufactured for the commercial market, 
being made of glucose and inferior or imitation fruit 
flavors, were not of good enough quahty for the sol- 
diers. So lemon-drops of the most expensive kind — ■ 
the kind that they sell in the smart shops on Fifth 
Avenue and Tremont Street and Michigan Boulevard 
— ^were adopted as a standard, the recipes for making 
them being distributed to a number of candy manu- 
facturers. Now the lemon-drops for the army are 
made from pure granulated sugar and flavored with 
an emulsion made from the rind of the lemon. The 
sourer they are the better, say the soldiers. So great 
became the demand for candy — which, by the way, 
is of great value in rebuilding wasted tissues — that 
the Chief Quartermaster of the A. E. F. took over a 
number of French candy factories and, using Amer- 
ican sugar, manufactured huge quantities of candy 
for our troops in France. 

Tobacco was a recognized item in the ration of 
the A. E. F., statistics showing that 95 per cent of 
the men used it in one form or another — which serves 
to show how the soldier vote would go should the re- 
formers ever attempt to saddle the Constitution with 
an antitobacco amendment. To men enduring great 
physical hardships, obliged to live without the com- 
forts and frequently without the necessities of life, 
and always under the terrific strain imposed by war, 



THE "Q. M. C." 159 

tobacco fills a need which nothing else can satisfy. 
In view of this, it was decided to adopt the practice 
of our allies and allow each soldier a certain amount 
of tobacco a day, the ration being four cigarettes, four 
ounces of chewing-tobacco, or four ounces of smoking- 
tobacco, and one hundred papers. Though cigars 
were not included in the army ration, they could be 
purchased at the Quartermaster stores in France at 
astonishingly low prices. Havana cigars were sold at 
the same price which the government paid for them in 
Cuba, there being no tax or import duty, no charge for 
transportation, and no middleman's profit. Smokers 
of cigars will appreciate how cheap they were when 
I mention that at the commissaries in France I paid 
eighteen cents apiece for Corona Coronas. In order 
to provide "smokes" for the army, the entire stocks 
of several of the largest cigarette and tobacco manu- 
facturers were commandeered — a fact with which 
they quickly acquainted the public in their advertising. 
A single purchase consisted of 3,000,000,000 cigarettes 
— enough to provide two "fags" for approximately 
every human being on the globe. The difference be- 
tween the old army and the new was strikingly illus- 
trated by the difference in their choice of tobacco. 
The soldier of the old army was most strongly ad- 
dicted to the use of that unlovely article known as 
"plug" — thereby giving steady employment to the 
spittoon-makers. The men of our new armies, how- 
ever, expressed an overwhelming preference for the 
cigarette. Thus does tobacco gauge the progress of 
civilization ! 

A close third to tobacco and candy in the affections 



i6o THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

of the soldiers was chewing-gum. Three and a hah" 
million packages of the shop-girl's delight were sent 
overseas during the month of January alone. Chew- 
ing-gum has come, indeed, to be regarded as little 
short of a necessity for the soldier, both because of its 
value as a substitute for water — it is estimated that 
250 pounds of chewing-gum will save 100 gallons of 
water when it is needed most — and because it is a heat 
and energy producer. During intensive drilling, prac- 
tice firing, and on marches the more gum a man chews 
the less water he drinks — obviously a highly important 
consideration, for at the front water is usually scarce 
and difficult to obtain. Curiously enough, the con- 
sumption of gum is heavier in winter than in summer, 
this doubtless being due, as I have already mentioned, 
to the fact that it is a heat-producer. It took the 
British, oddly enough, to devise a novel and interesting 
use for chewing-gum which was later adopted by cer- 
tain of our own commanders. Just before an attack, 
when the assaulting battalions were formed up on the 
tapes waiting for the word which would send them 
over the top, the enemy's scouts, prowling in No Man's 
Land, frequently detected the presence of the waiting 
troops by their subdued chorus of coughing. A British 
officer who had been in the United States evolved the 
idea of stopping these betraying coughs by giving every 
man a stick of chewing-gum. So Messrs. Wrigley, 
Beeman, White, and Adams may congratulate them- 
selves on having "done their bit" toward walloping 
the Hun. 

My mention of a chorus of coughs naturally sug- 



THE "Q. M. CJ' i6i 

gests the subject of music, which was another of the 
multitudinous activities of the Quartermaster Corps. 
By this I do not mean to imply that the "Q. M." 
furnished the army with bands, for it did not, but it 
did supply the bands of the army with instruments 
and music. Music, you must understand, was one of 
the most important factors in the maintenance of that 
intangible something called morale. It was a curious 
characteristic of the American psychology that when 
a homesick soldier heard a band playing "Home, Sweet 
Home," or '^When You Come Back," or "Keep the 
Home Fires Burning," it did not increase his home- 
sickness. It had, instead, precisely the opposite effect: 
it cheered him up ! Recognizing this, the military 
authorities saw to it that bands were stationed in every 
town and hamlet in France where any considerable 
body of troops was billeted. By the last summer of 
the war we had in France nearly 400 bands, to say 
nothing of the musical organizations improvised by 
the various units. As a result, the French inhabitants 
of the zones in which our armies were operating be- 
came as familiar with "Over There," "Good Morn- 
ing, Mr. Zip-zip-zip," and particularly with "Oh, How 
I Hate to Get Up in the Morning," which was the 
soldier's favorite because it so satisfyingly expressed 
his feelings, as they were with the "Marseillaise." 
The American Army was, indeed, as noticeable for 
its musical proclivities as the French Army was for 
its total absence of them. Ours was a whistling, sing- 
ing army, if ever there was one, though for some reason 
it seemed to delight in plaintive, melancholy tunes. 



i62 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

Many and many a time I have heard a column coming 
down a road in the darkness, the softly whistled chorus 
of "The Long, Long Trail" rising above the clink of 
accoutrements and the slog-slog-slog of marching feet. 

In the early summer of 1918 the Quartermaster- 
General received a cable from General Pershing re- 
questing that $50,000 worth of sheet-music for the 
bands of the A. E. F. be shipped without delay. As 
the chief of the purchasing unit, to whom the order 
was turned over, did not feel qualified to select the 
music for some 3,000,000 of his fighting countrymen, 
he delegated the task to a committee consisting of 
Lieutenant R. C. Deming, bandmaster at Camp Meigs, 
Mr. Ward Stephens, the noted organist and authority 
on music, and Irving Berlin, the most famous com- 
poser of popular music in America, who was at that 
time a sergeant in the Coast Guard but who was bor- 
rowed from that organization by the Quartermaster 
Corps. The selection and classification of this great 
mass of music — the largest single order of its kind 
ever given — necessitated the committee working al- 
most night and day for weeks, it being enormously 
assisted in its task by the enthusiastic co-operation of 
the various music printers and publishers, both of 
these trades making great financial sacrifices in order 
to promote the pleasure and inspiration of the boys 
overseas. 

Have you ever gone into one of those huge empo- 
riums which make a specialty of supplying equipment 
for sportsmen, to purchase an outfit preparatory to a 
fishing-trip in Canada or a shooting expedition in the 



THE "Q. M. C." 163 

Rockies? If so, you will remember how much time 
and thought you devoted to comparing the merits of 
the various types of clothing and other equipment 
which you were shown. It probably took you the 
better part of an hour to decide whether you would 
be more comfortable wearing Canadian shoepacks or 
hobnailed ankle-boots. You had a long discussion 
with the salesman as to the relative merits of whip- 
cord, Harris tweed, and gabardine. Even making the 
choice between a slouch hat and a cloth cap presented 
a perplexing problem. But this was only the begin- 
ning, for you had to decide on a rain-coat, a tent, a 
cot, blankets, pillows, cartridge-belts, fly-books, cook- 
ing utensils, and heaven knows what besides. And 
after you had made your final decision you were prob- 
ably far from being satisfied with what you had se- 
lected. Yet this outfit, over which you had spent so 
much thought, was, probably, to be used only during 
a brief summer's vacation. Picture, then, the task 
faced by the Quartermaster Corps when it was sud- 
denly called upon to provide complete equipment for 
some 4,000,000 men for an indefinite period. At first 
thought it might seem easy enough to purchase cloth- 
ing for soldiers — a coat, a pair of breeches, an over- 
coat, a hat, and a pair of shoes for each man — until 
you are reminded that no one of these simple articles 
of uniform was standard for civilian use, either in ma- 
terial, pattern, or color. Everything had to be made 
to order. Everything had, moreover, to be better 
made than if it were intended for civilian use, for the 
men for whom these articles were intended were not 



i64 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

going out to shoot elk or catch trout; they were going 
to a country 3,000 miles away for the purpose of killing 
Germans, and no one could say how long the business 
would take them. It was a Titanic task, this equipping 
of the men who took up arms against Germany. The 
organization which handled the buying end of it was 
roughly as follows: in Washington the Clothing and 
Equipage Division of the Office of the Director of Pur- 
chase, where all the activities were centralized; in 
Philadelphia a purchasing office, which was a branch 
of the great Quartermaster Depot in that city, and 
in New York a procurement office which kept con- 
stantly in touch with the raw-material markets of the 
world. 

The innumerable special-service units which were 
constantly being added to the rapidly expanding army 
required all sorts of strange, new equipment and 
special clothing. The cooks and bakers had to have 
cotton aprons and the blacksmiths leather ones. The 
linemen of the telegraph battalions had to have special 
gloves. Hoods were needed for the motorcycle des- 
patch-riders, overalls for the men of the stevedore 
battalions, helmets for the camp firemen, garments of 
fur and leather for the flying-men. The prisoners 
began to come streaming in and for them had to be 
designed clothing which would insure their speedy 
recognition and recapture in case they attempted to 
escape. The convalescents at the hospitals needed 
special suits. The expeditionary troops sent to Siberia 
and the Murman Coast required outfits which would 
keep them warm through the long arctic winters. 



THE "Q. M. C." i6s 

And uniforms had to be provided for the army's 
women nurses. Besides this vast quantity of clothing 
there were tents to be provided, cots, blankets, towels, 
shaving outfits, brown-canvas bags for filtering water, 
and the blue-denim bags in which the soldiers kept 
their personal belongings. These things were not in 
existence anywhere; they had to be made from the 
outset. To produce them in the enormous quantities 
required, not only took the maximum output of all the 
factories and mills already engaged in the manufacture 
of such articles, but hundreds of other plants had to 
change over their machinery in order to meet the 
army's needs, and the Quartermaster Corps had to 
send experts to give instruction at these plants in the 
new manufacturing processes and methods. Nor was 
it enough for the Quartermaster Corps to thus become 
itself a manufacturer of clothing and equipment. It 
had to manufacture the cloth used in the clothing, and, 
going still further, it had to provide the raw cotton 
and wool used in making the cloth, as well as the hides 
for the leather used in the shoes. And it had to pro- 
duce this staggering volume of equipment quickly, for 
the Germans would not wait. It was compelled, 
moreover, to make its purchases in a market glutted 
with orders from the Allied governments and from the 
domestic trade. And, to increase the difficulties under 
which the corps labored, it had to buy on credit, and 
to do so in the face of cash competition, for Congress 
did not make sufficient funds available until twelve 
weeks after the declaration of war. Nevertheless, the 
whole enormous undertaking was successfully carried 



i66 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

through, and, save in rare instances, the soldiers never 
lacked for clothing or other Q. M. supplies. 

Wool was the most important of the raw products 
to be procured, since it entered into the composition 
of more items than any other material. Soon after 
the declaration of war the Quartermaster Department 
estimated that about 100,000,000 pounds of scoured 
wool would be required to meet the initial demands of 
the army. An inventory of all wool supplies, includ- 
ing wool ordered from abroad as well as the stocks on 
hand in this country, revealed the startling fact that 
there was in sight only about 35,000,000 pounds — 
barely more than a third of the amount needed. To 
insure the procurement of this wool and to head off 
speculation in domestic wool prices, for the American 
sheep were then about to be sheared, the government 
itself, in July, 191 7, entered the wool business. It 
immediately optioned practically all the wool in the 
hands of all the dealers in the United States; it fixed a 
price for the domestic supply for the ensuing year; it 
arranged to procure the entire 191 7 clip if needed; it 
took over all wool under import licenses, and it sent its 
buyers to South America and the other foreign markets. 
There was a wool administrator to buy wool, a wool- 
purchasing quartermaster to pay for it, and a wool 
distributor to sell it to the government contractors. 
Within a year the Clothing and Equipage Division had 
absorbed the entire wool trade of the United States. 
In fact, there was no wool market again and no public 
sale of wool until after the signing of the Armistice. 

The largest of the foreign markets which was avail- 



THE "Q. M. C." 167 

able from the standpoint of accessibility was the Ar- 
gentine. Australia and New Zealand were, of course, 
enormous markets, but the shortage of tonnage made 
it impossible to spare many bottoms for the long voy- 
age to the antipodes. As a result of the shipping situ- 
ation, when- the fighting ceased there was an appalling 
shortage of wool everywhere in the world except in 
Australia and New Zealand. America was short of 
wool, there was a little in England, France had practi- 
cally none, and in Germany and Austria there was 
none at all. But Australia and New Zealand had a 
billion pounds — and no ships. 

At first the better grades of wool appeared to be 
adequate to meet the demands of the army, but later 
changes were made in the specifications for various 
cloths — uniform cloth being increased from 16 to 20 
ounces, overcoating from 30 to 32 ounces, shirting 
flannel from 8^ to g}4 ounces, and blankets from 
3 to 4 pounds — which made it necessary to utilize 
grades of wool which previously had been used only 
in coarse materials, such as carpet. In order to obtain 
the necessary weight and warmth, the lower grades of 
wool were blended with the higher grades, though this 
frequently entailed a sacrifice of fineness of texture and 
appearance. This explains why many of the uniforms 
worn by our returning soldiers looked rough and un- 
even in color. But the necessary cloth was provided 
and it was warm and it wore well. The trouble was 
that it was not provided soon enough. During the 
autumn of 191 7 and the succeeding winter thousands 
of our soldiers, both in France and in the camps at 



i68 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

home, did not have sufficient clothing to keep them 
dry or warm. Hundreds of American soldiers went 
into action wearing British uniforms — even to the 
buttons bearing the royal cipher and crown ! 

The Quartermaster Corps introduced endless econ- 
omies in order to save wool. More economical pat- 
terns were made for uniforms. Originally 1.45 yards 
of cloth were required to make a pair of wool breeches. 
A cheaper cutting pattern reduced this figure to 1.222 
yards, thus saving nearly a quarter of a yard of cloth 
on every pair. Since the purchases of wool breeches 
amounted to 10,300,000 pairs, this single economy 
resulted in a saving of over 2,300,000 yards of cloth 
on breeches alone. It was also found that cotton lin- 
ings could be substituted for the wool facings of coats 
and overcoats without sacrificing either serviceability 
or warmth. Another important cloth economy came 
when the designers of the Clothing and Equipage Divi- 
sion eliminated the right-hand pocket of the "O. D." 
shirt on the ground that this pocket was not used 
enough to justify the additional expense. 

Americans have always believed, or pretended to 
believe, that, so far as the uniforms of our fighting 
forces are concerned, smartness is not essential. This 
is a mental attitude which we inherit, no doubt, from 
our pioneering forefathers, and which was strength- 
ened by those Civil and Spanish War generals who 
tucked their trousers in their boots, pulled their slouch 
hats over their eyes, and wore handkerchiefs instead 
of collars. So, when the first contingents of the Ex- 
peditionary Forces set sail for France, we excused 



THE /'Q. M. C." 169 

the obvious shortcomings of their uniforms by assert- 
ing that they "lool^ed businesslike and American" — 
an assertion which was, however, open to some doubt. 
If our soldiers looked military — and they did — ^it was 
not because of their uniforms but in spite of them. 
No one recognized more quickly than the Commander- 
in-Chief of the A. E. F. that the uniform of the Amer- 
ican soldier was lamentably lacking in smartness, a 
lack which was made painfully apparent when it was 
contrasted with those worn by the soldiers of the Al- 
lied nations. When, therefore. General Pershing 
recommended the adoption of a smarter-looking uni- 
form, the Clothing and Equipage Division undertook 
to design one, with, incidentally, an eye to the saving 
of cloth. The coat of the uniform, formerly called 
the blouse — a ridiculous and inappropriate designa- 
tion which is now obsolete — was cut with new lines 
which made it slimmer and more graceful while re- 
taining all the warmth and comfort of the old garment. 
As the soldiers usually filled the patch-pockets of their 
old blouses with all sorts of articles they were usually 
unsightly bulges, but on the new coat the patch-pocket 
is retained only in appearance, the pocket actually 
being on the inside. It is not known to most Amer- 
icans that the breeches which had been worn by Amer- 
ican soldiers for twenty years or more have been 
replaced by trousers so far as the A. E. F. is con- 
cerned. The soldiers themselves were not particularly 
enamored of the breeches, which frequently caused 
chafing under the knee and always caused a burst of 
expletives when a man tried to put them on in a hurry. 



I70 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

Moreover, it was often found impossible for the sur- 
geons to remove breeches from a man wounded in 
the legs without cutting the cloth and thereby ruining 
the garment. All these objections have been obviated, 
however, by the adoption of trousers, which have the 
added value of increased warmth. Following General 
Pershing's recommendations, the overcoat, which was 
much too long to be worn in the trenches, was rede- 
signed, a new garment being evolved which was smarter 
and more practical. Other changes are the adoption of 
the spiral woollen puttee in place of the canvas legging 
and the substitution of the jaunty overseas cap for the 
impractical and universally unbecoming campaign hat. 
The redesigning of the uniform — which, by the 
way, never appeared in the field — accomplished several 
surprising economies. Merely by the substitution of 
trousers for breeches, the lacings, eyelets, tape, and 
stays thus eliminated amounted to 95^ cents on each 
garment, and had the war lasted until July i, 1919, 
would have saved the taxpayer nearly $17,000,000 
on orders placed or in sight. The change in the de- 
sign of the overcoat saved 62 cents per garment — an 
estimated saving, by July i, of nearly $900,000. It 
was found that the service coat could be made for 
$1.60 less than the old blouse, which by July i would 
have effected an economy of close to $5,000,000. The 
changes in these three garments not only gave the 
American soldier a much better-looking uniform but 
it saved the American Government enough money 
to build a first-class battleship, and, what was most 
important of all, it effected an enormous economy in 



THE '^Q. M. C." 171 

the consumption of raw wool, which, once exhausted, 
could not be replaced with all the money on earth. 

In making its earlier clothing contracts the gov- 
ernment paid the contractor a percentage of the value 
of the yardage which he saved by his economy in cut- 
ting and it also permitted him to keep his own cHppings. 
But later on, when the shortage in wool became more 
acute, the cloth issued to the contractor was calculated 
more closely, he received no credit for his savings, and 
all clippings had to be turned in. These clippings were 
sent to the base sorting-plant in New York, where 
they were baled and shipped to mills to be used as 
reworked wool, in blankets and other articles. From 
September, 1917, to December, 1918, this plant handled 
over 17,000,000 pounds of wool clippings, the total 
sales of which produced $5,500,000. 

Wool was not only made up into clothing but it 
went into such knit goods as undershirts, drawers, 
stockings, gloves, and puttees. This branch of the 
war woollen-goods industry found itself confronted 
with a serious problem in the lack of suitable machinery, 
for though there were numerous manufacturers of 
knit goods, their mills had been devoted to the pro- 
duction of specialties, such as men's union suits and 
women's underwear. These concerns had, therefore, 
to make great changes in their machinery, and some- 
times to remodel their plants, before they could knit 
underclothing in the sizes required for the army. 
Toward the close of the war every machine in the 
United States that could make hosiery was knitting 
socks for soldiers. 



172 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

At one time there was a serious shortage of needles, 
which we had formerly obtained from Germany. When 
this source of supply was cut off we turned to Japan, 
but the Japanese needles proved anything but satis- 
factory: they were not properly tempered and their 
frequent breakage caused much loss and delay. A 
rumor reached the ears of the Quartermaster-General 
that there were 10,000,000 knitting-needles in Sweden, 
whereupon purchasing agents were despatched to 
Scandinavia post-haste. They returned a few weeks 
later bringing with them a million needles, which helped 
to relieve the situation, the American needle-makers 
meanwhile being pushed to the limit. 

Though the production of the regulation service 
uniform constituted the bulk of the Manufacturing 
Branch's activities, it was by no means the whole of 
them. It went into an entirely new field, for example, 
when it bought uniforms for the women nurses of the 
army. There was a trim little Norfolk suit of navy 
blue which cost the government about thirty dollars; 
a cotton uniform for indoor wear that cost three dollars; 
a long, belted ulster costing in the neighborhood of 
twenty-eight dollars; to say nothing of blouses made 
from navy-blue silk, jaunty hats of blue velour, stout 
tan walking-boots, and hospital shoes of white canvas. 
When it came to lingerie, however, the "Q. M." balked. 
It permitted the nurses to purchase that for them- 
selves. 

Then there was the special clothing required for 
the soldiers fighting on the Siberian steppes and the 
frozen wastes around Archangel. These garments 



THE "Q. M. C." 173 

were designed by men who had had experience in the 
arctic and were intimately familiar with the peculiar 
conditions existing on the world's remotest battle-line. 
Our soldiers in Russia were supplied with caps and 
mittens made from muskrat fur, overcoats of mole- 
skin or of duck lined with sheepskin, Alaskan parkas 
with hoods lined with the fur of the wolf, woodsmen's 
heavy knee-length socks, Canadian shoepacks, such 
as the trappers and voyageurs wear in the Northern 
woods, and special heavy underwear. These outfits, 
which cost about a hundred dollars each, were sup- 
phed to approximately 15,000 men. 

And, finally, there was the clothing for prisoners 
of war and interned enemy aliens. This was not manu- 
factured for the purpose but, instead, the uniforms dis- 
carded by our own men were dry-cleaned, repaired, and 
dyed a special shade of green — a glaring emerald-green 
— so that the wearer could be distinguished as a prisoner 
as far as the eye could see him. I remember watching 
a column of German prisoners leaving the prison 
stockade near Atlanta one morning on their way to 
work. In the front rank, his red mustache bristling 
fiercely, was a peculiarly haughty and insolent head 
steward whom I had known in those days, now long 
past, when self-respecting persons crossed the At- 
lantic on German liners. He was fatter than when I 
had last seen him, and in his bright-green prisoner's uni- 
form he looked for all the world like an animated cab- 
bage. There is a certain appropriateness in the fact 
that the uniforms with which we supplied our captured 
Germans cost the government just thirty cents apiece. 



174 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

For more than forty years the woollen shirts worn 
by American soldiers have been made at the great 
Quartermaster Depot at Jeffersonville, in southern 
Indiana. In order to give employment to as many 
of those who needed it as possible, it has always been 
the policy of the depot to distribute the sewing of the 
shirts among the women of the community, so, upon 
the outbreak of war, there were some 2,000 sewing 
operatives working for the government in or near Jef- 
fersonville. When word was received from Washing- 
ton that shirts were required in enormous quantities 
and with the least possible delay, appeals were made 
by means of posters and through the press to the women 
throughout that region to increase the output of shirts 
for our soldiers. The response was as quick as it was 
gratifying. Women who did not need the money gave 
up their duties or their pleasures and turned to sew- 
ing. Soon there was scarcely a woman along that 
portion of the Ohio who was not, like the industrious 
Sister Susie, sewing shirts for soldiers. The number 
of operatives jumped from 2,000 to 20,000 almost over- 
night; the yearly output of shirts rose from 600,000 
to 8,500,000. The operatives were required to call 
at the depot, where unmade garments, which had al- 
ready been cut, were issued to them, together with 
the necessary trimmings and a completed shirt to be 
used as a guide, the garments being sewn at home and 
returned to the depot for inspection. In order to care 
for the thousands of women who came flocking into 
Jeffersonville to secure shirts, first-aid stations had 
to be established at the depot. A Sanitary Bureau was 



THE "Q. M. C." 175 

also organized and a corps of sanitary inspectors were 
employed to visit the homes of all the operatives to 
see that the shirts were being sewn under proper sani- 
tary conditions. As a further precaution, the shirts 
were fumigated upon their return to the depot, thus 
insuring the soldier against any risk of contagion from 
this source. When the Armistice, was signed the Jef- 
ferson ville Depot was the largest shirt-manufacturing 
establishment in the world, and "The Song of the 
Shirt" was heard for miles up and down the banks of 
the Ohio. 

In supplying the army with such articles as sheets, 
pillow-cases, towels, gauze, denim, duck, and webbing, 
the Cotton Goods Branch of Purchase and Storage 
procured over 800,000,000 square yards of cotton tex- 
tiles — enough to have covered an area four times the 
size of the District of Columbia. It also purchased 
enormous quantities of burlap for packing, for bags, 
and for the use of the Camouflage Service, as well as 
silk for flags, hat-cords, and badges. Though it was 
never found necessary to resort to the use of paper 
fabrics, the division had in its possession samples of 
paper cloth and articles made from it which had been 
captured from the enemy. These paper textiles were 
carefully analyzed and studied, and had it become 
necessary to provide a substitute for cotton, we were 
prepared to produce one which would have astonished 
the Germans. 

One of the characteristics of the equipment of 
the European soldier is the number of articles made 



176 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

of leather. He has leather belts, cross-belts, cartridge- 
belts, bandoliers, gun-slings, map-cases, knapsacks, 
sword and bayonet scabbards, chin-straps, and not 
infrequently his head-gear is likewise made of leather. 
Not only is all this leather costly, but it is stiff, heavy, 
cracks easily, and requires constant work to keep it 
clean. Owing to the extreme scarcity and the almost 
prohibitive cost of leather, its use was confined in 
the American Army to saddles, bridles, harness, leg- 
gings, and Sam Browne belts, virtually all other articles 
of equipment formerly made of leather, such as car- 
tridge-belts, packs, bandoHers, scabbards, gun-sHngs, 
pistol-holsters, and the like, being made of cotton web- 
bing. To supply the army's enormous demand for 
these articles it was necessary to convert to the manu- 
facture of this cotton webbing many plants which had 
theretofore been engaged in the production of hose, 
cotton belting, and asbestos brake linings. All the 
plants thus adapted to the emergency manufacture 
of webbing were dependent on purchased yarns which 
they had to secure in the open market. In the South, 
where most of this yarn was produced, the securing 
of power was a very serious problem. Many of the 
mills depended upon electricity generated by water- 
power, so when this water-power ran very low it was 
necessary for the government to step in and allocate 
the available power among the mills working on army 
contracts according to the most pressing needs. Then 
there was the inevitable question of labor. In many 
of the plants employees had to be given special courses 
of instruction before they could produce the new ma- 



THE *'Q. M. C." 177 

terials on which they were set to work. In the South, 
particularly, much trouble and delay was caused by 
the question of child labor and the working hours for 
women and minors, for in its later contracts the gov- 
ernment inserted clauses insisting on the observance 
of certain regulations designed to benefit and protect 
the workers. In some instances contracts were re- 
turned to the government because of this child-labor 
clause, whereupon orders were issued virtually com- 
pelling the mills to produce the goods called for, whether 
they wanted to or not. I doubt if any government in 
the world, while engaged in a life-and-death struggle, 
would have found time to show such solicitude for the 
weakest and least influential of its people. 

Next to wool, leather was the most essential of 
the raw materials required for the equipment of our 
soldiers, the Quartermaster Corps purchasing 33,000,000 
pairs of shoes, 6,500,000 pairs of gloves, and nearly 
3,000,000 leather jerkins, in addition to enormous 
quantities of harness, saddlery, and other equipment. 
It was early recognized, therefore, that it was as vitally 
necessary to save every foot of leather as it was to 
conserve every pound of wool, so, in pursuance of this 
policy, the Hide and Leather Control Board was formed. 
This board not only put a check on the use of leather 
for non-mihtary purposes by restricting the variety 
of styles in civihan shoes and by similar measures, 
but it guaranteed an adequate supply of leather to 
those manufacturers engaged on army contracts. It 
also maintained a small army of inspectors to examine 



178 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

the leather at the tanneries as well as the finished prod- 
ucts of the shoe, clothing, and harness factories, there- 
by guaranteeing the quality of the material and fre- 
quently improving it. Generally speaking, no action 
was taken which affected the hide or leather business 
without calling into consultation the members of the 
particular trade concerned and coming to an agree- 
ment with them as to the quality and price. This 
procedure, which was followed throughout the war, 
did much to eliminate all friction and misunderstand- 
ings, and enormously speeded up production. 

Hanging always over the heads of the board was 
the menace of a -leather shortage, and its members lay 
awake nights devising plans by which such a calamity 
could be averted. To illustrate the seriousness of the 
situation, it was estimated in July, 1918, that in 
another twelvemonth something like 13,000,000 hides 
would be required for the use of the army alone. As 
this is the entire output of hides in the United States, 
it was realized that were the war to continue through 
the winter, there would be no leather left in the United 
States by spring. Faced by this critical situation, the 
board called to its aid the foremost tanners, shoe and 
harness manufacturers in the country, and it was due 
to their services in checking up the figures submitted 
by the trade, in keeping down the manufacture of non- 
essential articles, in unearthing thitherto unsuspected 
sources of leather supply, and in introducing more 
economical methods of cutting, that during the latter 
months of the war the army rarely lacked for leather 
equipment. I have already told how great economies 



THE "Q. M. C." 179 

in the consumption of leather were effected by the 
substitution of cotton webbing in the manufacture 
of certain articles. During the second spring of the 
war the women of America suddenly found that they 
were no longer able to obtain the extremely high- 
topped boots which were then the fashion, while men 
had to content themselves with plain instead of 
"wing" tipped shoes. The leather thus saved was 
used in the manufacture of footwear, gloves, and jer- 
kins for the men who were offering their lives in the 
trenches in order that the people at home who wore 
the high-topped boots and the wing-tipped shoes 
might continue to live in safety. Many persons have 
wondered why officers serving in the United States 
were not authorized to wear the Sam Browne belt. I 
can give them one of the reasons. It was because the 
necessary leather could not be spared for a purpose 
which was, after all, purely ornamental. As a result 
of this admirable system of supervision and control 
the Quartermaster Corps was not only able to fill with 
reasonable promptness the requirements of our troops 
overseas, but when the Armistice was signed, it had 
enough leather equipment, either manufactured or in 
process of manufacture, to supply an army of 5,000,- 
000 men. 

In none of its innumerable forms of endeavor did 
the Quartermaster Corps more strikingly demonstrate 
its genius as a manufacturer than in the design and 
production of the army shoe. Before the war our sol- 
diers wore a machine-sewed shoe of russet calf lined 
with duck, very similar to civilian footwear of the bet- 



i8o THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

ter grade. Shortly after the beginning of hostiHties, 
however, the War Department adopted a new and 
much stouter shoe. This new model had a much 
heavier upper than the old one, with the flesh or rough 
side out and the grain side in, and with no lining, while, 
instead of a single sole, as in the old shoe, two heavy 
soles were used, the bottoms of which were thickly 
studded with hobnails. But even these, formidable in 
appearance as they were, did not prove stout enough 
to stand up under the incredible wear of trench war- 
fare, so there was finally developed the so-called 
"Pershing shoe." These really should have been clas- 
sified as tanks instead of shoes, for they could go any- 
where, they could withstand any amount of use or 
abuse, and they were, literally speaking, armored. 
The "Pershing shoe" has three outer soles which are 
fastened to an inner sole of outer-sole quality and 
thickness, first by nailing, then by screws, and finally 
by stitching with heavy linen thread; the toe is re- 
inforced with a moulded steel plate; both sole and heel 
bristle with hobnails, and, as a final touch, the heel 
has a heavy steel horseshoe around its edge. It was 
by long odds the best shoe worn by any army. In 
fact, no such footwear was ever produced before. The 
pity was that it did not reach our troops sooner. 

Before we had been at war a month a most trouble- 
some fact came to light in connection with the ques- 
tion of shoes. It was found that the old schedule of 
sizes was entirely wrong and did not begin to meet the 
new conditions. In the old army the individual men 
were carefully selected according to a certain standard 



THE "Q. M. C." i8i 

of measurement, and it was, therefore, a simple matter 
to fit them with shoes from a comparatively restricted 
range of sizes. But the millions of men who were 
called to the colors by the draft represented all types 
except the physically defective. In the ranks of the 
recruits a 250-pound policeman who had spent the 
better part of his life on his feet would be found shoul- 
der to shoulder with an anaemic-looking little clerk who 
had spent most of his life perched on an ofhce-stool. 
A man whose feet had always been incased in the 
flexible pumps of a professional dancer might find 
himself rubbing elbows with a cow-puncher who wore 
high-heeled Mexican boots and who had always lived 
in the saddle. As the raw levies began to round into 
shape at the training-camps, it was found that clerks, 
professional men, and others who had not been accus- 
tomed to working in the open air developed in size 
with amazing rapidity. This was particularly true 
of the men's feet, for after a few long hikes with a 
full pack, a recruit could not squeeze his feet into shoes 
of a size which he had theretofore worn with perfect 
comfort. This meant that an entire new series of 
models and lasts had to be made, running up to un- 
heard-of sizes, as, for example, 17-EEE ! The stand- 
ard sizes of the army shoe at present range in length 
from 5 to 15 and in width from A to EE, thus making 
it necessary to carry each style of shoe in one hundred 
and twenty sizes. 

Now, no article of clothing can cause such acute 
discomfort and so quickly affect a man's disposition, 
and consequently his morale, as an ill-fitting shoe. 



i82 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

The Germans were the first to appreciate the impor- 
tance to an army of caring for the men's feet, and with 
their customary thoroughness took steps to prevent 
foot-trouble from the very beginning of the war. I 
remember remarking, when I was with the Ninth Ger- 
man Army during the first weeks of the invasion in 
1 914, that following each regiment of infantry was a 
huge motor-truck carrying a complete pedicure estab- 
lishment — a sort of chiropodist's office on wheels. 
Whenever a soldier developed a bunion or a corn or an 
ingrown nail, whenever his boots pinched his toes or 
chafed his heel, he fell out of the ranks and waited for 
the pedicure wagon — I don't remember the German 
name for it — to come along, climbed up, sat in a chair, 
and the attending chiropodist tended his feet and, if 
necessary, issued him another pair of boots. ''The 
feet of the soldiers?" said a German general to whom 
I mentioned the matter. "They no longer belong 
to them after the Empire goes to war — they belong 
to the Emperor. A soldier is no more permitted to 
abuse his feet than he is to abuse his rifle. They must 
always be in condition for marching and for fighting 
the Emperor's battles." 

Profiting by the example of our enemy, we exer- 
cised the utmost care in fitting our men with footwear. 
As the result of examinations conducted at a number 
of training-camps, it was found that out of nearly 
60,000 men examined, slightly more than 71 per cent 
were wearing shoes which were too long and nearly 10 
per cent shoes which were too short, only one man in 
five having shoes of the proper size. These figures 



THE "Q. M. C." 183 

were sufficient to demonstrate to the War Department 
the necessity for extraordinary care in the fitting of 
soldiers' shoes, and led to the establishment at Camp 
Meigs, D. C, and Jefferson Barracks, Mo., of schools 
for foot-measuring and shoe-fitting. Two officers from 
every camp and cantonment in the United States were 
detailed to take this course of instruction, which lasted 
five days and consisted of lectures, demonstrations of 
the various appliances, and practical training, the lat- 
ter being acquired by each officer actually measuring 
and fitting a thousand men with army shoes under the 
direction of competent instructors. 

The coal which was required for heating and cook- 
ing in the various camps and cantonments both in the 
United States and France, the coke which was used at 
our arsenals in the production of ordnance, the gaso- 
line which drove our trucks, tractors, tanks, and air- 
planes, and the oils which lubricated them, were all 
procured through the Fuel Branch of the Fuel and 
Forage Division of the Office of the Quartermaster- 
General, which in October, 191 8, was converted into 
the Raw Materials Division of the Office of the Director 
of Purchase and Storage, without, however, in any 
way affecting its functions. From its creation by the 
President in August, 191 7, until the close of the war, 
the United States Fuel Administration worked in clos- 
est harmony with the Fuel Branch of the Quartermaster 
Department in supplying the enormous fuel require- 
ments of our fighting forces. The procedure was 
roughly as follows : The Fuel Branch first ascertained 



i84 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

the probable requirements of every camp, post, and 
station for each month of the fiscal year, and upon 
receipt of these estimates it would request the Fuel 
Administration to allocate to the respective camps the 
tonnages required. Pursuant to these requests, the 
Fuel Administration would instruct its District Repre- 
sentatives to place the necessary orders with the vari- 
ous coal-shippers, the regulation of shipments and 
similar matters thenceforth being handled by the Dis- 
trict Representatives directly with the Camp Quarter- 
masters. With the abolition of the Fuel Adminis- 
tration at the end of the war, the task of supplying 
the army with coal and coke devolved upon the officers 
in charge of the various General Supply Zones into 
which the United States is now divided. 

The prime importance to the army of gasoline 
and lubricants was made clear by General Pershing 
when he placed them, with food and forage, in the 
first division of the automatic supply cable which gov- 
erned and controlled the movement of all supplies 
that had to go forward daily to the combat troops on 
the line. To procure and maintain an adequate supply 
of petroleum products, and to devise and standardize 
these products, there was created the Oil Branch of 
the Fuel and Forage Division of the Quartermaster 
Corps. Many interesting problems were successfully 
solved by the Oil Branch, which received assistance 
of the greatest value from the producers and refiners. 
Though the oil producing and refining concerns of the 
United States have repeatedly been characterized by 
poHticians and by the press as "soulless corporations," 



THE "Q. M. C." 185 

their patriotism throughout the great emergency was 
shown by the fact that their interest and efforts did 
not end with providing what the government asked 
for, but every one connected with them, from their 
presidents down, regarded the matter of supplying 
the army as a personal responsibility, suggesting many 
valuable changes, improvements, and economies based 
on their technical knowledge and experience. 

For the benefit of those unfamiliar with the oil 
industry, I ought to explain that there are many grades 
of gasoline, differing in character or in method of pro- 
duction. Commercial gasoline, for automobile use, 
included grades known as ''straight-run," "casing- 
head," "blended," "pressure still," and "cracked." 
In order to standardize gasoline for army use the Fuel 
and Forage Division worked out, with the co-opera- 
tion of the refiners, certain specifications, with the 
result that a gasoline called "Quartermaster Specifica- 
tion" was adopted as a standard fuel. It is known as 
"428° gasoline," and is used for motor cars, trucks, 
tanks, and cycles. For aviation purposes three other 
grades were produced; two of which, 257° "Fighting 
Naphtha" and 302° "Export Aviation," were furnished 
only to the American Expeditionary Forces. "Fight- 
ing Naphtha" is the highest refinement of gasoline ever 
produced in quantity, being produced by "rerunning" 
Export Aviation and taking off the "cream" of that 
extremely high-grade fuel. To distinguish it as the 
finest motor-fuel in existence and to prevent its indis- 
criminate use, a small amount of aniline dye was added 
to color it red. Its use was confined to scout and battle 



i86 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

planes, thus giving our flying-fighters an immense 
superiority over those of our aUies or of the enemy, 
and thereby lending them the confidence which is 
required for daring deeds. Indeed, many a Hun flier 
was brought to earth, many a D. S. C. was won, as 
much by the qualities of the scarlet fuel as by the 
courage of the aviator. Who says that there is no 
romance in gasoline? 

Though this is the greatest horse-breeding nation 
in the world, and though Americans fondly think of 
themselves as a nation of horsemen, no one of the war- 
ring countries found itself so utterly unprepared in 
respect to remounts as the United States. The im- 
portance with which the War Department had re- 
garded the question is best illustrated by the fact that 
at the outbreak of the war remount matters were in 
charge of one oflicer, with two civilian clerks, as a 
subsection of the Transportation Branch of the Quar- 
termaster-General's Office. For a number of years 
prior to the war repeated efforts had been made by 
enthusiastic horsemen, both in the army and out of 
it, to induce the government to undertake the breed- 
ing of cavalry and artillery mounts on a large scale, 
or at least to encourage their breeding by farmers, as 
has been done for centuries by certain of the European 
nations. But the parsimony of Congress, combined 
with the lack of vision of officers high in the mihtary 
councils of the nation, blocked afl these plans, and 
though one or two government studs were established 
with animals presented by public-spirited breeders, 



THE "Q. M. C." 187 

so little of real value was accomplished that of the 
458,000 animals purchased during the war by the Re- 
mount Service, only about 5,000 were horses bred 
specially for military purposes. 

Upon the outbreak of the war it became neces- 
sary, therefore, to scour the country for suitable ani- 
mals, which had, perforce, to be purchased in the open 
market, which had already been gone over with a fine- 
tooth comb by British, French, Italians, and Russians, 
all of whom had maintained remount commissions in 
this country from the very beginning of the conflict. 
Fortunately for us, under the circumstances, the re- 
quirements of the Expeditionary Forces were confined 
to officers' mounts, artillery horses and mules, only 
one regiment of cavalry, in addition to the headquarters 
troops of the various divisions, being sent overseas. 
There were, however, demands for large numbers of 
horses for the use of the two cavalry divisions which 
were in process of organization in this country, and 
for the cavalry regiments which were kept on patrol 
duty along the Mexican border. 

As soon as it became apparent that it would be 
necessary for the government to make large purchases 
of horses and mules, hundreds of horse-breeders, racing 
and hunting men and polo-players offered their services 
as purchasing agents. Some fifty of these gentlemen, 
as shrewd judges of horse-flesh as the Blue Grass region 
of Kentucky, the hunting-fields of Long Island and 
Virginia, and the show-rings and race-courses of the 
great cities could produce, were given commissions 
as captains in the Quartermaster Corps, and were sent 



i88 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

to the headquarters of the various purchasing zones 
for a short period of practical instruction in the type 
of horse required by the army, and in army methods 
generally, before being sent on the road to purchase 
animals. How efficiently and conscientiously these 
officers, unaccustomed to military methods, performed 
their duties is shown by the exceptionally high class 
of animals which they purchased and shipped to the 
various auxiliary remount depots, where they were 
trained and conditioned for army use. As the dearth 
of tonnage placed a limit on the number of animals 
which could be shipped overseas, a number of remount 
officers were sent to Europe, where large purchases of 
live stock were made, about 110,000 horses and 10,000 
mules being bought from the French, some 12,000 
horses and 6,000 mules from the British, and upward 
of 12,000 mules — the big, i6-hand Andalusians — in 
Spain. 

At the beginning of the war there were only three 
remount depots in the United States — at Front Royal, 
Virginia, Fort Keogh, Montana, and Fort Reno, Okla- 
homa — together with auxiliary depots at Fort Bliss 
and Fort Sam Houston in Texas, but with the rapid 
expansion of the forces it was found necessary to estab- 
lish an auxiliary remount depot adjacent to each of 
the thirty-three camps and cantonments of the Na- 
tional Guard and the National Army. This naturally 
necessitated an enormous increase in the Remount 
Service personnel, which shortly before the Armistice 
numbered 400 officers and 19,000 enlisted men. As 
the war progressed it became increasingly difficult for 



THE "Q. M. C." 189 

the Remount Service to meet the demands made by 
the auxiUary depots for officers, for the available supply 
of amateur horsemen who had volunteered their ser- 
vices quickly became exhausted, many of them going 
into other branches of the army. In order to meet 
this demand camps were organized at Camp Joseph 
E. Johnston, near Jacksonville, Florida, and at Camp 
Shelby, Hattiesburg, Mississippi, where enlisted men 
who possessed the necessary qualifications were trained 
for commissions as officers. There was also established 
at Camp Johnston a mobilization camp for the or- 
ganization and training of Field Remount Depots, but 
as this organization did not prove sufficiently flexible, 
there was authorized a smaller unit, known as a Field 
Remount Squadron, consisting of 6 officers and 157 
enlisted men, it being estimated that one squadron 
would be required for every replacement of 400 ani- 
mals. And replacements were, of necessity, frequent, 
it having been estimated that the average life of a 
horse in France was only sixteen days. There were 
organized at Camp Johnston a total of sixty-three 
Field Remount Squadrons, three wagon companies, 
and twelve pack-trains, of which all but seventeen 
squadrons saw service abroad. The enlisted personnel 
of these squadrons consisted of drafted men who were 
carefully selected because of their knowledge of horses, 
most of them having been farmers, ranchmen, cow- 
punchers, and, in a few cases, jockeys. Provision was 
also made for training the enlisted specialists attached 
to each squadron, schools being established for horse- 
shoers, saddlers, farriers, teamsters, and squadron 



I90 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

clerks. Indeed, there was no more interesting sight 
at a cantonment than the Remount Depot, where 
bronco-busters, fresh from the ranges, could be seen 
breaking unruly horses in the "bull-pens," while veteran 
packers and plainsmen gave instruction to classes of 
raw recruits in the art of harnessing and driving a six- 
horse "swing" or of throwing the "diamond hitch." 

The chief function of the Quartermaster Corps 
might be described, I suppose, as spending. It was, 
in fact, barring the Ordnance Department, the greatest 
spending agency in America, if not in the world, during 
the war. Not many persons are aware, however, I 
imagine, that it has a division whose sole purpose is 
saving. I refer to the Salvage Division. This was 
the only organization in the army which turned waste 
into profit. It was a ragpicker, a garbage-collector, a 
junk-dealer, and an olScclothes man combined. While 
certain departments of the government seized on the 
great emergency to spend money like a drunken sailor, 
as the politicians put it, the Salvage Service was as 
systematic a saver as the late Russell Sage. And, like 
that famous financier, it was able to show something 
for its savings — to be exact, something over $ioo,- 
000,000. It had a perfect passion for economy. It 
saved everything, from the pieces clipped from a sol- 
dier's overcoat when it was shortened to the food 
which he left on his plate. Nothing was too large or 
too small to escape it. Indeed, the members of the 
Salvage Service should have adopted for their shoulder- 
badge a design showing an ever-open eye. If a loco- 



THE ''Q. M. C." 191 

motive was utterly demolished in a railway wreck 
the men of the Salvage Service appeared on the scene 
almost before the wheels had stopped turning and 
collected the sphntered remnants. If a soldier tossed 
a pair of worn-out socks into the garbage-barrel, the 
Salvage Service fished them out and used them for 
something or other. In France it saved and sorted 
the millions of sand-bags which lined the parapets of 
the trenches; it untangled and rerolled for future 
use the millions of feet of twisted, rusted barbed wire 
which formed the entanglements in front of the 
trenches; it gathered and sorted and sent back for 
reloading the empty shells from the field-guns; it 
fumigated and cleaned and pressed the soldiers' uni- 
forms; it washed their shirts and socks and underwear; 
it mended their shoes; it transformed their obsolete 
campaign hats into felt slippers, and both in this 
country and abroad it collected the waste from the 
mess-tables as well as introducing various methods of 
food-saving; it operated hundreds of camp and mobile 
laundries, where for a dollar a month a soldier could 
have washed all the clothing he wished; it ran farms 
and truck-gardens at the camps and cantonments in 
order to supply the troops with fresh vegetables; it 
maintained printing-shops, wagon-repair shops, car- 
pentry-shops, and paint-shops, and just as the Treasury 
Department appealed to the country to "Buy! Buy! 
Buy!" so the Salvage Service, by means of posters 
and placards, appealed to the army to "Save! Save! 
Save!" 

In the happy, careless, easy-going days before 



192 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

the war, the question of repairing the worn shoes and 
clothing of the soldiers was not considered of sufficient 
importance to merit even passing attention from the 
War Department. The army was small, material 
was plentiful, and the clothing belonged to the soldier. 
The government issued a man a uniform and out of 
his pay required him to keep it clean and in repair; 
if his clothing did not present a neat appearance, he 
received a reprimand or a court martial. When his 
shoes wore out he had to have them mended at his 
own expense — all out of the munificent salary of fifteen 
dollars a month ! But under the new system, intro- 
duced at the beginning of the war, the soldier's cloth- 
ing is the property of the government, and the govern- 
ment undertakes to keep it clean and in repair. And 
that is where the work of the Salvage Service comes 
in. 

Within five months after its entry into the war the 
United States, profiting by the experience of the Allies, 
took steps toward the organization of a branch of the 
army which would devote itself to the conservation 
and reclamation of articles and materials which would 
otherwise be wasted. Pursuant to this policy there 
was established in October, 191 7, the Conservation 
Branch of the Supplies Division of the Quartermaster- 
General's Office with a personnel of two officers and a 
stenographer. Within less than a year this little 
nucleus had expanded into the huge Salvage Division 
of the Office of the Director of Purchase and Storage, 
with 500 officers, 20,000 enlisted men, and 2,000 civilian 
employees. The work of this division has consisted, 




AMERICAN SALVAGE DUMP IN FRANCE. 

'The salvage service had a perfect passion for economy." 




Photograph by Signal Corps, U. S. A. 

A WORKROOM IN AN AMERICAN SALVAGE DEPOT IN FRANCE. 

The salvage service fumigated, cleaned, pressed the soldiers' uniforms, washed their shirts, socks, and 
underwear. It mended shoes and transformed campaign hats into felt slippers. 




AN AMERICAN DELOUSING STATION. 

The weary men returning from the trenches found the delousing and fumigating stations set up and 

awaiting them. 




Photograph by Signal Corps, U. i>. A. 

AN AMERICAN LAUNDRY IN OPERATION NEAR THE FRONT. 
Each of these units can wash the clothing of 10,000 men, fresh from the trenches, weekly. 



THE "Q. M. C." 193 

generally speaking, in cleaning, laundering, repairing, 
renovating, and otherwise looking after the uniform and 
equipment of the American soldier, and in those cases 
where the uniform or equipment was too badly dam- 
aged to be worth repairing, the service has devised 
means of using the sound material for other purposes. 
During the six months beginning April i, 1918, the 
service salvaged nearly 9,250,000 articles of clothing 
and equipment. The value of these articles when new 
was something over $41,000,000. After their repair it 
is estimated that their value was in the neighborhood 
of $29,000,000. The total cost of repair was a little 
more than $2,500,000, leaving a net saving due to this 
salvage operation of about $23,500,000. Quite a tidy 
sum. During four months of 19 18 the Salvage Service 
collected approximately 43,000,000 pounds of junk, 
including old metals, iron, rubber, cotton and wool- 
len rags, rope, paper, leather, and horsehair. About 
3,000,000 pounds of this material, having an estimated 
value of $769,000, was reissued for army use, while 
19,000,000 pounds was sold for $508,000, leaving 
23,000,000 pounds still to be disposed of. Had it not 
been for the Salvage Service, practically all this would 
have gone to waste. In addition this division collected 
a great quantity of lumber, mostly odds and ends, of 
which $25,000 worth was reissued for army use and 
$475,000 worth was sold, leaving approximately 1,750,- 
000 board feet on hand. From May to November, 
1918, the Salvage Division collected and sold $300,000 
worth of garbage, and nearly $200,000 worth of manure 
and condemned hay and straw, to say nothing of dead 



194 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

animals to the value of $5,000, thus netting upward 
of $500,000 from the swill-pail, the manure-pile, and 
the bone-yard alone ! The .American soldier likes to 
sit down to his meals with a heaping plate before him, 
and as he rarely eats everything on his plate, an enor- 
mous amount of perfectly good material finds its way 
to the garbage-barrel. It is estimated that prior to 
July, 191 8, every man in the camps in the United 
States wasted approximately two pounds of food per 
day in this fashion. Then the machinery of the Sal- 
vage Service was set in operation, it being estimated 
that in five months, on the basis of 1,000,000 men, it 
saved nearly a quarter of a billion pounds of foodstuffs. 

Another activity of the Salvage Corps was the 
operation of hundreds of camp and mobile laundries. 
When war was declared the government owned four- 
teen small steam-laundries which provided for the 
needs of the few hundred men stationed at the posts 
where they were located. But with the declaration of 
war and the concentration of hundreds of thousands 
of men in the various cantonments, the laundry ques- 
tion assumed such serious proportions that nineteen 
cantonment laundries were hastily erected and placed 
in operation. The urgent need for these laundries is 
illustrated by the fact that on September i, 1918, 
nearly 6,000,000 pieces of clothing were awaiting laun- 
dering. Quite a wash-basket, wasn't it? 

The Mobile Laundry Unit was one of the novelties 
introduced by the Great War. Instead of the soldiers 
being compelled to take their soiled clothing to the 
laundry, the laundry came to them. No matter how 



THE "Q. M. C." 195 

remote the town in which their rest billets might be 
located, no matter how exposed it might be to the fire 
of the enemy's long-range guns, the weary men, return- 
ing from the trenches, found the mobile laundry set 
up and awaiting them. Each unit consists of a large 
steam-tractor and four trailers. When erected for op- 
eration the trailers form a room thirty feet long and 
twenty-eight feet wide, with power provided from out- 
side by the tractor. The trailers contain two large 
washing-machines, two extractors, a drying tumbler, 
hot and cold water tanks, a pump to lift water from 
wells and streams, a soap-tank, and a dynamo for elec- 
tric lighting. Each of these units, by operating twenty- 
four hours a day, can wash the clothing of ten thou- 
sand men, fresh from the trenches, weekly. So rapidly 
and systematically was the work done that when the 
men left the "wash-up" and "delousing" stations, 
after having rid themselves of the filth and vermin 
acquired at the front, they found clean clothing await- 
ing them. And clean clothing — and this I say from 
experience — means more to the soldier than anything 
save a bath and food. 

The Salvage Service has been one of the least 
advertised, as it has been one of the most efficient, 
branches of the army. Probably not one out of a 
thousand readers of this book was previously aware of 
its existence. Yet during the twelve months of 191 8 
it saved to the government, either in articles repaired 
and reissued or in materials saved and sold, one hundred 
and one millions of dollars. (If this does not impress 
you, let me remind you that the entire appropriation 



196 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

for the support of the army for 1898 — the year of the 
Spanish- American War — was only a little over $70,000,- 
000.) It has developed what was formerly a liability 
into a tremendous asset. It has conserved untold 
quantities of raw materials at a time when those mate- 
rials were most vitally needed and were most difficult 
to obtain. By again and again repairing and using 
worn-out clothing and equipment and thereby per- 
mitting the shipment of vital necessities, it saved thou- 
sands of tons of shipping at a time when every ton 
counted. 

If, in this impressionistic sketch of the activities 
of the Salvage Service, and of its parent, the Quarter- 
master Corps, I seem to have indulged too freely in the 
use of figures, it is because those figures are of vital 
concern to you. They represent your dollars, Mr. 
Reader; they show where the money from your Liberty 
Bonds has gone. 



V 

ORDNANCE 

THE history of manl^ind is punctuated by a few 
examples of endeavor which, by reason of their 
magnitude, cannot be fully comprehended by the 
human mind. That phase of America's part in the 
Great War comprised in the work of the Ordnance De- 
partment of the Army is one of them. It has been 
termed, and without exaggeration, the greatest effort, 
directed by a single head, of all time. It was incom- 
parably the greatest industrial undertaking that the 
world has ever seen. Therein lies the difficulty of 
writing an adequate story of ordnance — it is too big, 
too complex, for any writer entirely to grasp, for any 
reader completely to comprehend. It is like attempt- 
ing to describe the grandeur of the Grand Canyon; 
so stupendous a thing can neither be translated into 
words nor encompassed by the mind. The best that 
I can hope to do is to sketch a few of the most salient 
features of the great story in barest outline. 

First of all, I would wish to convey to you some 
conception of the vastness of the organization com- 
monly referred to as Army Ordnance, the immensity 
of the sums which it expended, and the enormous 
quantities in which it dealt. It has been said that a 
billion is too huge a figure for any one to comprehend. 
Scarcely a billion minutes have elapsed since the birth 
of Christ. Yet the estimated cost of the ordnance 

required to supply our first 5,000,000 men was nearly 

197 



198 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

thirteen billions of dollars. But that is, after all, merely 
an endless caravan of ciphers. Here is another way 
of expressing it. Between the signing of the Declara- 
tion of Independence and the declaration of war against 
Germany, the sixty-four successive congresses of the 
United States appropriated but twenty-sLx billion 
dollars for every j^urpose of government, including the 
cost of five wars, the pensions resulting from those 
wars, the upkeep of the Army and Navy, the activi- 
ties of the State, Interior, Treasury, Agriculture, Com- 
merce, and Post-Office Departments, the control of 
immigration, the administration of justice, river and 
harbor improvements, public buildings and public 
works of every description, the salary of every gov- 
ernment employee from the President of the United 
States to the keeper of an obscure lighthouse in the 
Philippines, these countless items representing in the 
aggregate the total expenditures, over a period of more 
than seven-score years, of the richest nation in the 
world. Thus it will be seen that, had the war con- 
tinued for another five months, a single branch of the 
army would have expended approximately one-half as 
much as the nation expended from its foundation to 
the date on which it entered the great conflict. Com- 
bine the wealth of all of America's millionaries, add 
the value of aU of America's railways, throw in the 
Standard Oil, the Western Union, the Ford Motor 
Company, and the United States Steel Corporation 
for good measure, and you will still fall far short of 
the staggering total which the United States had 
planned to invest in ordnance. Or, if these compari- 



ORDNANCE 199 

sons are not sufficiently graphic, the Ordnance Depart- 
ment would have spent enough in the first two years 
of war to have built twenty-four Panama Canals, to 
have purchased the entire city of New York, at its as- 
sessed valuation, twice over, or to have built 36,000,- 
000 Ford cars — one for every third person in the United 
States. That is the best that I can do to give you a 
realization of the immensity of the task assigned to 
the Ordnance Department. 

Ordnance ! No word in the whole lexicon of war 
held so much significance for the fighters at the front 
— and so httle for civilians at home. For ordnance is 
the bed-plate of the whole military machine. If it 
breaks or gives way the machine instantly stops run- 
ning. An army can fight without cavalry, without 
aircraft, without tanks, without machine-guns, yes, 
even without artillery, but no army can fight, or ever 
has fought, without ordnance. It is as essential to 
the functioning of an army as oil is to the burning of 
a lamp. Behind the belching soixante-quinze, behind 
the crackHng musketry, behind the lumbering, ele- 
phantine tanks, behind the escadrilles of airplanes, was 
the huge organization, its head on the Potomac and 
its tentacles reaching westward to the Pacific and east- 
ward to the Rhine, which provided the fighting-men 
with weapons and kept the voracious maws of those 
weapons supplied with their steel food. The combat 
troops up on the line knew that should the great 
Ordance machine break down, even for an hour, they 
would be compelled to retreat or surrender. The gen- 
erals knew it. The statesmen and politicians in Paris 



200 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

knew it, too. And the Germans knew it best of all, 
as is testified to by the labor troubles which they fo- 
mented and the fires and explosions which they caused. 
You didn't know that the work of the Ordnance De- 
partment was so important, eh? Yet, if I remember 
rightly, you were always asking why the Allies didn't 
end the war by destroying a certain German ordnance 
establishment called Krupps. 

What is ordnance? It were easier to tell what it 
is not. It is artillery of all types and calibres, with 
mounts, carriages, and ammunition; small arms of 
every description; every kind of explosive used in war- 
fare; an endless variety of gas-driven, steam-driven, 
horse-drawn, and hand-drawn transport; all harness 
and horse equipment, save that used by the Quarter- 
master Corps; tools, machinery, and material for mak- 
ing or repairing everything included in the term — in 
short, every tool used in the fighter's trade. 

Dawn on the Western Front. Everything is in 
readiness for a great infantry attack. For weeks past 
the preparations have been in progress. The roads 
leading to the front have been ground to powder by 
the endless processions of heavy-laden motor-lorries 
bringing up food, ammunition, and supplies. The ad- 
vanced dumps are piled high with cases of rifle and 
machine-gun cartridges, trench-mortar ammunition, 
shell of every calibre and kind, all stencilled with the 
flaming bomb which is the trade-mark of the Army 
Ordnance. Up in the forward observation-posts intel- 
ligence ofi&cers are peering anxiously through periscopes 



ORDNANCE 201 

into the fog-hung wastes of No Man's Land. In the 
assembly trenches the storm troops are waiting in 
silence on the tapes which mark the positions of the 
various units, the faces of the men showing grim and 
determined under their steel helmets. Each wears a 
belt containing a hundred cartridges in clips; his 
bayonet is fixed. The men of the medical detach- 
ments, distinguished by the broad-bladed bolos at 
their hips, lean against their up-ended stretchers, wait- 
ing for the beginning of the bloody business which will 
stain those stretchers red. The officers, a trifle ner- 
vous and self-conscious, stroll up and down the ranks, 
examining their automatics or glancing at the luminous 
dials of their wrist-watches to note the approach of 
the zero hour. Rifles, bayonets, pistols, bolos, peri- 
scopes, cartridges, together with the clips which hold 
them and the belts in which they are carried — all are 
ordnance. 

A mile or so in the rear the artillery is likewise 
waiting, every man at his post. The slim steel pro- 
jectiles have been shoved home and the breech-blocks 
closed upon them; the barrage- tables have been 
worked out to a second, the ranges to a yard; the 
lids of the caissons are raised, revealing the brass 
heads of the shell waiting in their pigeonholes; the 
gunners are grasping the lanyards. Each battery 
commander stands motionless, one arm raised high, 
eyes glued to his carefully synchronized watch. The 
minute-hand, creeping forward slowly — oh, so slowly — 
rests at last upon the hour set for the beginning of 
the barrage. The upraised arms drop like semaphores, 



202 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

the watching gunners pull their lanyards, and the 
heavens seem to split asunder as tongues of flame 
leap from the eager guns. An instant later thunder 
and lightning burst above the distant German trenches. 
Steel falls upon them as water falls over the precipice 
at Niagara. The earth shakes, the air quivers to the 
hell of sound. The cannoneers, as though suddenly 
awakened from a trance, leap into action. Bearing 
in their arms the steel messengers of death, they dash 
between the caissons and the guns, sweating like 
stokers on a record-breaking hner. Farther to the 
rear are the midcalibre pieces, the "four-point-sevens," 
the five and the six inch guns and howitzers, whose 
great projectiles go shrieking Rhineward with a noise 
like giants tearing mighty strips of Knen. Huge howit- 
zers, streaked like zebras and spotted like giraffes by 
the camoufleurs, their ugly snouts pointing toward the 
sky, some drawn by panting tractors, others mounted 
on the tractors themselves, come plunging and rock- 
ing across the broken and all but impassable terrain 
to take up new positions. The dusty roads are lined 
for miles with columns of gray trucks laden with am- 
munition, for the stream of shell between the dumps 
in the rear and the batteries at the front must never, 
even for an instant, halt or check. So close are the 
trucks that an active man could, it seems, travel for 
miles, without ever setting foot to the ground, by leap- 
ing from the tail of one to the hood of another. A 
fragment from a German shell shatters a gun and puts 
it out of action. As though by magic two great trucks, 
tabloid factories on wheels, one a mobile ordnance 



ORDNANCE 203 

repair-shop, the other a storeroom of spare parts, ap- 
pear on the scene, and skilled mechanics, wearing on 
their collars the bomb insignia of the Ordnance De- 
partment, repair the damaged gun, heedless of the 
fact that death is raining all about them, and put it 
into action again. From their cleverly camouflaged 
positions far in the rear the great 8 inch and 9.2 inch 
howitzers, and the 8, 10, 12, and 14 inch guns on rail- 
way-mounts are methodically pounding the enemy's 
back areas, shelling his roads and bridges, destroying his 
ammunition-dumps and railroad-stations, their monster 
projectiles cleaving the air with a roar like invisible 
express-trains. Save only the men themselves, every- 
thing — ^guns and howitzers, shrapnel and high explosive, 
carriages, railway-mounts, tractors, trucks, limbers, 
caissons, even the harness on the horses — is ordnance. 
From out of the smoke, so close behind the rolling 
barrage that they seem to be moving amid the burst- 
ing shell, a long line of tanks — elephantine monsters 
of the Mark VIII type and little, agile, humpbacked 
whippets — waddling forward across the welter of No 
Man's Land, wading through ooze and slime, clamber- 
ing over heaps of debris, crushing wire entanglements 
as easily as though they were made of string, rearing 
themselves against the walls of concrete pill-boxes and 
then crashing down upon them, straddling in their 
stride the yawning chasms of the German trenches, 
but always pushing forward, like terrible and ruthless 
prehistoric monsters, one-pounders and machine-guns 
spurting death from the loopholes in their armored 
flanks. Tanks and tank-guns are ordnance, of course. 



204 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

The barrage abruptly lifts, and the eager infantry, 
pouring out of the trenches, sweeps forward with a 
roar. Out in front, forming a thin fringe to the leading 
wave of the assault, are the autoriflemen, playing 
streams of lead on the enemy trenches from their 
Brownings and Chauchats as a street-cleaner plays a 
stream of water upon the asphalt from his hose. As 
the barrage lifts, the Germans, emerging from the dug- 
outs where they have taken shelter, man their parapets, 
but volleys of hand-grenades drive them back again. 
Through the wire demolished by the tanks and into 
the shell-shattered trenches swarm the cheering Yanks. 
Parties of '^moppers-up" hasten from dugout to dug- 
out, calling upon the occupants to come out and sur- 
render, and when they do not comply, tossing hand 
or gas grenades into the entrances or wrecking the 
dugouts with mobile charges. The captured positions 
are quickly organized. Machine-guns and trench- 
mortars are brought up and placed in position. Carts 
and voiturettes, ammunition-laden, some drawn by 
mules, others by hand, come forward at the double. 
An enemy machine-gun nest is located and promptly 
demolished by a pair of Stokes mortars, which send 
their bombs somersaulting through the air, as a juggler 
tosses bottles, in an unending stream. Then the 
enemy launches a counter-attack, the gray-clad hordes 
advancing doggedly while the rifle-fire crackles along 
the trenches and the machine-guns go into action with 
a clatter which sounds like a boy drawing a stick along 
the palings of a picket fence. Rifle-grenades and shell 
from the little 37-mm. infantry cannon burst amid the 



ORDNANCE 205 

advancing Germans, gaps appearing here and there 
amid their close-locked ranks as patches appear in a 
moth-eaten fur when it is beaten. Before this hail of 
death the counter-attack falters, checks, crumbles, and 
finally breaks, as an ocean roller dissipates itself against 
a concrete pier in futile spray. Everything used in 
the assault and in the repulse of the counter-attack — 
service and automatic rifles, 37-mm. cannon, rifle, gas 
and hand grenades, machine-guns and trench-mortars, 
ammunition-carts and voiturettes, mobile charges — is 
furnished by the Ordnance Department. 

Reports come in that the enemy is reforming his 
shattered columns in the shelter of a ridge, preparatory 
to launching another attack, whereupon the brigade 
commander orders a machine-gun company to open in- 
direct fire, the rain of bullets mowing down the unseen 
and now thoroughly demoralized Germans as effec- 
tually as though they were advancing in close order 
across the open. Not only the machine-guns them- 
selves, the tripods on which they are mounted, the 
ammunition, the belts in which it is contained and the 
carts in which it is brought up, but the dehcate scien- 
tific instruments necessary for indirect fire — panoramic 
sights, cHnometers, transits, angle-of-sight instruments, 
alidades, squares, protractors — are all provided by 
Army Ordnance. 

Meanwhile, simultaneously with the conflict on 
the ground, an aerial battle has been in progress high 
in the blue, the German airmen, clearly distinguished 
by the huge black crosses painted on the under side of 
their planes, attacking the American flyers who are 



2o6 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

engaged in locating and photographing the enemy posi- 
tions and in directing the fire of the American guns. 
To the support of the slow-moving observation and 
artillery planes speed the fighters of the escadrilles de 
chasse, their stripped machine-guns, synchronized to 
fire between the blades of their propellers, blazing 
away at the rate of 1,200 shots a minute. Their ma- 
chine-gun belts are loaded with tracer, armor-piercing, 
and incendiary cartridges in rotation, the first per- 
mitting the gunner to correct his aim by following 
the bullet's flight, the second to pierce the armored 
tanks of the enemy machines, the third to set them on 
fire by igniting the leaking petrol or to destroy ob- 
servation-balloons, while the belts themselves, made 
of disintegrating steel links, fall apart as they are fired. 
Giant bombing planes, keeping to the upper levels, 
head for the German back areas to drop their ugly 
eggs, ranging in size from the comparatively small 
bombs used against troops in the open to the 1600- 
pound monsters which produce craters 100 feet in 
diameter and 50 feet deep, upon the enemy's dumps, 
warehouses, roads, bridges, and railway-stations. 
Everything save only the airplane itself — the syn- 
chronized machine-gun, the disintegrating belt and 
the special ammunition, the bombs in all their vary- 
ing sizes, the mechanisms for suspending and releasing 
the bombs, the sights to determine the exact moment 
for release, even the ingenious electrical heaters for 
preventing the lubricating-oil in the guns from freez- 
ing at high altitudes — all these are provided by Army 
Ordnance. 



ORDNANCE 207 

Down upon our own back areas swoop raiding 
enemy aircraft, tiny specks against the blue, travelling 
at 140 miles an hour — the most difficult targets in the 
world. But complicated instruments, designed by 
Ordnance, are sighted upon them, determining their 
altitude, speed, and direction, and taking into account 
the windage and the trajectory of the shell, predicting 
the exact positions of the planes when our antiaircraft 
artillery opens upon them. The slim barrels of a bat- 
tery of antiaircraft guns, mounted on motor-trucks 
for mobility, are raised to the indicated elevation, and 
a salvo of shell goes whining skyward, each projectile 
fitted with a special fuse so delicate in action that con- 
tact with the thin fabric of an airplane's wing is suf- 
ficient to explode it, and yet so designed that it will 
not explode if, in loading, it should be accidentally 
dropped upon the ground. Ordnance again. 

Night falls. The guns are silent. From along the 
line of the captured positions rise fireworks like those 
which delight the summer multitudes at Coney Island. 
Star-shell, fired from Veriy pistols, make graceful fiery 
arcs against the purple-velvet sky, bursting, as they 
descend, into fountains of sparks which illumine the 
positions where the weary Germans are. A night- 
bombing plane, prowling above the enemy's lines, un- 
able to see its target in the darkness, releases a para- 
chute-flare which slowly sinks earthward, illuminating 
the ground for a radius of a mile as brilliantly as though 
it were day. From the American positions colored sig- 
nal stars — red, green, white, or "caterpillar" combina- 
tions — fall slowly across the sky, conveying all sorts of 



2o8 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

cryptic messages to regimental and brigade headquar- 
ters in the rear, to the aircraft circHng above, or to 
the patrols scouting in No Man's Land. All these 
pyrotechnics were designed and made by Ordnance. 

But the work of Ordnance does not end when 
the guns cease firing. Far from it. The wear of 
battle on weapons of all kinds is enormous: guns 
must be relined and fitted with new recoil mechanisms; 
shattered wheels and trails must be replaced; broken 
rifles, pistols, bayonets, machine-guns, scabbards, hel- 
mets, trench-knives, periscopes, caissons, limbers, 
tractors, trucks, tanks, must be collected and trans- 
ported to the rear for repair or salvage. For the main- 
tenance of its material Army Ordnance had in the 
field many special facilities: mobile repair-shops, 
miniature machine-shops mounted on trucks to ac- 
company each division; semiheavy repair-shops 
mounted on five- ton trailers to accompany each corps; 
heavy semipermanent repair-shops for each army; 
railway repair-shops for the railway artillery, each 
successively less mobile but of greater capacity. In 
addition to this vast equipment for repair work in 
the field there were the complete expeditionary base 
repair-shops, requiring for their operation a personnel 
three times as large as the peace-time organizations 
of all the arsenals in the United States put together, 
capable of repairing each month 2,000 pistols, 7,000 
machine-guns, 50,000 rifles, of overhauling 2,000 mo- 
tor-vehicles, and of relining a thousand cannon. Ord- 
nance once more. 

And back of all this was the mammoth organiza- 



ORDNANCE 209 

tion created by Army Ordnance in America itself: 
arsenals, gun-foundries, rifle and revolver factories, 
wagon-plants, ammunition-plants, nitrate-plants, silk- 
mills, tanneries, harness and leather-goods factories, 
8,000 manufacturing plants in all, in which nearly 
4,000,000 workers toiled day and night to produce 
the 100,000 separate Ordnance items required by our 
armies oversea. Beyond the activities that I have 
just sketched, the Ordnance Department didn't do 
much in the war. 

Now it must be kept constantly in mind that the 
Ordnance problem with which America was confronted 
upon her entry into the war was essentially a non- 
commercial one. By that I mean that the articles 
required by the Ordnance Department had an ex- 
tremely restricted use, in many cases, indeed, no use 
at all, in the commercial life of the nation. In the 
piping times of peace what use did we have for field- 
guns, howitzers, machine-guns, automatic rifles, anti- 
aircraft and railway artillery, shell, caissons, limbers, 
synchronizing devices, steel helmets, trench-mortars, 
periscopes, tanks, tracer, armor-piercing, and incen- 
diary ammunition ? Unlike the nations of continental 
Europe, we not only did not believe in war or antic- 
ipate war, but we deliberately blinded ourselves to 
the possibility of becoming involved in war, so that 
we were, consequently, wholly unprepared for war 
when it came. Hence, having no use for the tools of 
war in the pursuits of peace, we had little, if any, 
knowledge of how to manufacture them. The Euro- 



2IO THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

pean Powers, on the other hand, having for centuries 
sat on a powder-magazine which, as they perfectly 
reaHzed, might blow up at any moment, had prepared 
themselves to meet the conditions which would in- 
evitably result from such an explosion by giving gov- 
ernment support to private industry in the manufac- 
ture of war material. Thus were developed such vast 
ordnance industries as Krupp in Germany, Schneider- 
Creusot in France, Skoda in Austria, Ansaldo in Italy, 
which, though operating as private firms in time of 
peace, were always under government supervision, 
and automatically passed into government control in 
time of war. But even the great armaments main- 
tained by Germany could not utilize in peace-time 
the enormous volume of war material produced at 
Essen. Yet it was imperative that the huge organiza- 
tion should be kept intact and ready for the war which 
would one day come. In order to maintain its organ- 
ization and, so far as possible, its output, Krupp's was 
encouraged, therefore, to seek foreign markets for its 
surplus products, Germany's diplomatic, consular, and 
commercial representatives virtually becoming Krupp 
sales-agents in every corner of the globe. Thus it 
came about that wherever there was a promise of 
fighting, whether in China, in Mexico, in Abyssinia, in 
Venezuela, or in the Balkans, war material bearing 
the trade-mark of the great ironmaster of Essen was 
found in the hands of the prospective belligerents. If 
they could not pay cash, they were given credit, often 
long credit, and, when they did not possess credit, they 
usually were given the arms anyway. In this manner 



ORDNANCE 211 

the German ordnance-machine was kept oiled and 
active, largely by foreign money, against the day when 
Germany would have need for its maximum output 
herself. Thus the government at Berlin had at hand, 
in time of peace, a tremendous and highly trained in- 
dustrial organization which fitted neatly into the Ger- 
man war-machine in time of war. The same was true, 
though in lesser measure, of the great French, Italian, 
and Austrian ordnance concerns. We in the United 
States, however, had nothing of the sort. The Beth- 
lehem Steel Company manufactured a limited amount 
of artillery, it is true, and the Colt, Winchester, Sav- 
age, and Remington corporations manufactured small 
arms, though mainly for sporting purposes, but they 
made them without any hope of government encour- 
agement or co-operation, and they marketed them in 
foreign countries without any save the most casual 
assistance from our diplomatic and consular officials. 
In certain cases, indeed, the government actively dis- 
couraged American arms manufacturers from disposing 
of their wares to foreign belligerents. 

By the assurance of steady employment and lucra- 
tive remuneration the great European ordnance man- 
ufacturers attracted to their employ men of excep- 
tional technical ability, thus forming a large and highly 
trained personnel with long experience in manufactur- 
ing the tools of war. The traditional poHcy of the 
United States, on the contrary, was to maintain in 
government employ a small, a very small, group of 
technically trained officers who, according to our care- 
less American theory, would be able to design and 



212 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

produce enough ordnance to meet the needs of our 
army in the remote and unHkely contingency that we 
should ever become involved in war. How ridiculously 
inadequate was this personnel will be realized when I 
say that there were but ninety-seven officers in the 
Ordnance Department at the outbreak of the war. 
How enormous were the requirements of the suddenly 
embattled nation is strikingly emphasized by the fact 
that 11,000 Ordnance officers were required for our 
first 5,000,000 men. All other branches of the service 
underwent similar expansion to a greater or less ex- 
tent, it is true, but whereas Signal Corps officers could 
be recruited from the telegraph and telephone com- 
panies, Motor Transport officers from the automobile 
industry. Railway Transport officers from the great 
railway systems, Medical officers from the ranks of 
the country's surgeons and physicians, Engineer officers 
from the various branches of the engineering profes- 
sion. Quartermaster officers from the packing and 
produce concerns, the clothing manufacturers, and 
the building trades, paymasters from the banks and 
financial institutions, judge-advocates from the mem- 
bers of the bar, there was no field of American endeavor 
to which the War Department could turn for officers 
trained in the highly technical and specialized profes- 
sion of ordnance design and manufacture. How could 
there be? There had never been any demand for 
tanks, for trench-mortars, for airplane drop-bombs. 
Ergo, there was no one in this country who possessed 
other than a vague and theoretical knowledge of how 
to design or manufacture them. Therefore, we had to 



ORDNANCE 213 

set about training men to do these things. And we 
could not train these men in a week or a month. Ord- 
nance designing, remember, requires the very highest 
form of mechanical and chemical engineering skill; its 
production is a highly specialized industry. A knowl- 
edge of its requirements was confined, as I have ex- 
plained, to the ninety-seven Ordnance officers of the 
regular establishment and to a handful of highly sal- 
aried experts in the employ of certain private plants; 
the facilities for its production were limited to six gov- 
ernment arsenals and to two large private concerns. 
The initial problem of Army Ordnance, therefore, was 
to disseminate on a nation-wide scale the special 
knowledge possessed by this handful of officers and 
experts and the special facilities possessed by these 
few arsenals and factories. In our endeavor to ac- 
quaint the nation with the requirements of the Ord- 
nance Department we naturally turned to our Allies, 
who freely placed at our disposal the great volume of 
special data on the subject which they had collected 
during three years of war and which had resulted from 
the many costly experiments and investigations which 
they had conducted prior to the war — ^plans, specifica- 
tions, working models, secret devices, jealously guarded 
formulas, even complete manufacturing processes. 
But, even with this great mass of detailed knowledge 
at our disposal, its translation into terms compre- 
hensible to American engineers and practicable for 
American manufacturers was in itself a perplexing 
problem. The chief obstacles to our use of foreign 
designs, specifications, and formulas lay, in the case 



214 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

of French and Italian designs, in the fact that they 
were written in different languages and expressed in 
different units of measurement, the principal difficulty 
involved in the adoption of English ideas being the 
radical differences in the manufacturing practices of 
the two nations. 

During the early days of the war it was repeatedly 
charged, both on the floors of both houses of Congress 
and in the editorial columns of newspapers and maga- 
zines, that, owing to a breakdown of the Ordnance 
Department, we were compelled to beg from our Allies 
war material which they could ill afford to spare. Let 
it be clear that I hold no brief for the Ordnance De- 
partment, but, in view of the wide circulation given to 
these unfounded assertions, I would like to disprove 
them by quotations from two official communications. 
The first is a telegram from the mission, headed by 
Colonel E. M. House and including Admiral Benson 
of the navy and General Tasker H. Bliss of the army, 
which was sent to Europe in the fall of 191 7 for the 
purpose of ascertaining how the American Expedition- 
ary Forces could most quickly be rendered effective. 
It reads: 

"The representatives of Great Britain and France 
state that their production of artillery, field, medium, 
and heavy, is now established on so large a scale that 
they are able to equip complete all American divisions 
as they arrive in France during the year 19 18 with the 
best make of British and French guns and howitzers. 
With a view, therefore, to expediting and facilitating 
the equipment of the American arnaies in France, and, 




FILLING A POWDER-BAG FOR A 16-INCH GUN. 



ORDNANCE 215 

second, securing the maximum ultimate development 
of the munitions supply with the minimum strain upon 
available tonnage, the representatives of Great Britain 
and France propose that the field, medium, and heavy 
artillery be supplied during 1918, and as long as may 
be convenient, from British and French gun factories." 

These offers were, of course, predicated on our 
continuing to furnish all raw material, all rough- 
machined forgings, and all finished components in 
quantities at least equal to those which we had been 
shipping to our allies since our entry into the war for 
finishing or assembly abroad. By our acceptance of 
these offers we not only obtained a breathing spell 
which enabled us to plan an ordnance programme 
which would insure the maximum production of artil- 
lery and artillery ammunition by the close of 19 18, 
but the new arrangement, coming into effect at a 
period when the submarine sinkings were at their 
height, insured us against the possible loss of the raw 
material only and not also the time and labor which 
we would have had to put into the finished article. 
In other words, by this co-operative arrangement we 
increased our production to the maximum and reduced 
our possible losses to the minimum. How the French 
regarded this arrangement is shown by the words of 
M. Andre Tardieu, then French High Commissioner 
in the United States : 

"From the industrial view-point the unity of effort 
created will produce happy results without precedent. 
From the financial standpoint it is possible to hope 
.that the purchase by the United States of French artil- 



2i6 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

lery material will create an improvement in exchange, 
much to be desired. From the military point of view 
it is evident that uniformity of type of guns and muni- 
tions for armies fighting on the same battle-fields is an 
appreciable guarantee of efficiency." 

The adoption for our own manufacturing pro- 
gramme of the British types of heavy howitzers en- 
tailed no unusual complication, but the adoption of 
the French types of field-guns and light howitzers in- 
troduced a factor whose importance the lay mind had 
theretofore not fully realized. I refer to the French use 
of the metric system, in which, of course, all the plans, 
specifications, and drawings furnished us by the French 
were figured. One inch = 2.54001 centimetres. The 
full significance of this difference in the national units 
of measurement is not apparent until one reflects that 
not a single standard American drill, reamer, tap, or 
die will accurately produce the results demanded by 
the specifications on a French drawing. Furthermore, 
the French standards for bar stock, for rolled sheets 
and plates, for structural steel shapes such as angles 
and I-beams, even for rivet-holes and rivet spacing, 
are far different from American standards. Given 
complete, up-to-date drawings of French material (and 
in many cases these were not obtainable) , the Ordnance 
engineer was immediately confronted with the neces- 
sity of either changing the American shop equipment 
— drills, reamers, taps, dies, and the like — to conform 
with French standards of measurement, thereby dis- 
carding the advantage of quick procurement of stand- 
ard rolled stock, bolts, nuts, rivets, cotter-pins, or of 



ORDNANCE 217 

doing what he did do — translating the centimetres in 
which the French specifications were figured into 
inches. But this was by no means all. French indus- 
trial practice develops the highly skilled all-round 
machinist to whom is left considerable discretion in 
determining finished dimensions and in fitting assem- 
bled parts; American industrial practice develops the 
machine speciaHst who works to tolerances — to maxi- 
mum and minimum gauges — and whose output accord- 
ingly requires little or no hand-fitting of assembled 
parts. The French mechanic always sees the complete 
assembled unit; the American confines his attention 
to the particular component on which he is engaged 
and the gauges which check the accuracy of his work. 
So, in translating the French drawings, they had to 
be adapted not only to the material phase of American 
shop practice, but the personal equation of the Amer- 
ican workman had also to be considered. Tolerances 
had to be prescribed, limit gauges had to be provided, 
jigs and fixtures, special milUng cutters, and a hundred 
other tools and instruments had to be designed and 
manufactured. But our manufacturing difficulties did 
not end even there. Though the French gave us the 
drawings of even their most jealously guarded secret 
devices, they could not give us that intangible some- 
thing which, for want of a better term, I can best de- 
scribe as innate mechanical skill of so high an order 
that it approaches genius, which is so marked a char- 
acteristic of the best French artisans and mechanics. 
Take, for example, the problem involved in the manu- 
facture of the hydropneumatic recuperator for absorb- 



2i8 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

ing the shock of recoil when a gun is fired — the recoil 
mechanism, as it is commonly called. This marvellous 
device performs a task equivalent to quietly halting 
the flight of a shell from a 75-mm. field-gun before it 
has travelled forty inches from the muzzle. So in- 
tricate is the mechanism, so delicately adjusted, that 
although it was introduced twenty years ago, it had 
never until recently been successfully manufactured 
outside of France. Though the Germans captured 
hundreds of these famous guns, the combined engineer- 
ing skill of Krupp's, with the model before them, was 
never able to manufacture a single one. 

The inherent difficulties encountered in producing 
these new types of ordnance, great as they were, were 
dwarfed, however, by the vastness and variety of the 
quantities involved. Let me see if I can make this 
clear. Compare the question of ordnance supply with 
that of subsistence, for example. A man eats no more 
in time of war than he does in peace. Speaking roughly, 
it is fifty times as difficult to feed 5,000,000 men as it 
is to feed 100,000 men, whether the smaller force rep- 
resents peace conditions and the larger one war condi- 
tions, or not. Consequently, the strain thrown upon 
the organization charged with the feeding of the army 
increased only in direct numerical proportion to the 
strength of the army. But, though war did not in- 
crease the demand of the individual infantryman for 
food, it enormously increased his demand for small- 
arms ammunition. Before the war each infantryman 
in the United States Army required 276 cartridges a 
year; during the war this jumped to 2,372 cartridges. 



ORDNANCE 219 

an increase of 1,040 per cent. In peace-time each 
machine-gun used approximately 6,000 rounds of am- 
munition; after the declaration of hostilities each of 
these voracious little weapons required 228,875 rounds 
— an increase of 4,600 per cent. Likewise, the needs 
of the 3-inch field-guns increased 18,200 per cent and 
those for 6-inch guns 73,400 per cent over their peace- 
time requirements. Here is another way of stating 
the same thing. If a pound of bread a day satisfies 
a man's appetite in time of peace, a pound of bread 
per day will satisfy it in time of war; but if a pound 
of metal represented the ordnance which he required 
in time of peace, from 10 to 700 pounds of metal 
would represent the ordnance which he wiU require 
upon going to war. 

The constantly increasing tendency toward em- 
ploying mechanical and chemical means of warfare 
produced another difficulty. Before the United States 
entered the war, a total of 50 machine-guns was the 
standard equipment of an infantry division. But when 
the Armistice was signed the tables of organization 
gave each division 768 automatic rifles and 262 ma- 
chine-guns, an increase in this type of equipment of 
more than 2,000 per cent. Furthermore, the General 
Staff of the A. E. F. was working on plans for the re- 
organization of infantry units which would have in- 
creased the number of automatic rifles in each com- 
pany to 24 — approximately one for every ten men — 
and which would have established a new equipment 
of 192 automatic rifles for each artillery brigade. It 
is scarcely necessary to point out that every additional 



220 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

automatic arm, with its insatiable appetite for cart- 
ridges, necessitated a corresponding increase in the 
requirements for ammunition and for ammunition 
supply. 

Before the United States entered the war, practi- 
cally all field-artillery, including guns, howitzers, lim- 
bers, caissons, repair-wagons, and the like, was drawn 
by horses or mules, the Ordnance Department furnish- 
ing the harness and other horse equipment. The diffi- 
culty in obtaining an adequate supply of animals, how- 
ever, together with the high rate of animal mortality, 
the constantly increasing weight of the guns, and the 
nature of the terrain, made necessary the wholesale 
motorization of the artillery, which was proceeding at 
an amazing rate when hostilities ended. Guns are now 
hauled by tractors; caissons and limbers have been 
displaced by motor ammunition-trucks; complete ma- 
chine-shops, mounted on motor-trucks, supplant the 
old forge-limbers and battery and store wagons; ma- 
chine-guns, instead of being packed on mules or drawn 
by horses, are usually moved to the front by various 
forms of motor transport and are often taken into 
action in tanks. Even the large-calibre field-pieces 
are now mounted on caterpillar tractors, which not 
only provide means of transportation for the guns but 
also the means for aiming them. These changes nat- 
urally brought others in their wake. The higher speed 
of motor-drawn artillery demanded rubber-tired wheels. 
The substitution of the automatic rifle, with its terrific 
burst of fire, for the ordinary shoulder rifle, entailed 
a tremendous increase in the capacity of the ammuni- 



ORDNANCE 221 

tion-trains. So, as the tools of war became more me- 
chanically efficient, they became correspondingly more 
complicated to manufacture. 

Now there were no limitations imposed as to where 
these tools should be procured. No one but a fool or 
an ignoramus would have insisted that, engaged as we 
were in a life-and-death struggle with a savage and 
ruthless enemy, we should only procure the weapons 
with which to subdue that enemy within our own bor- 
ders. If there is a marauder in your grounds, your 
chief concern is to get a gun; you do not particularly 
care whether it is your own gun or one loaned you by 
a neighbor, so long as it will shoot and shoot straight. 
The problem of the Ordnance Department, then, was 
to procure arms for our armies, to procure them in 
sufficient quantities, and to procure them quickly — 
not to procure them in America only. To have set any 
such limitations on our effort, no matter how flatter- 
ing it might have been to national pride, would have 
cost untold lives, it would have greatly prolonged the 
war, and it might well have produced a different and 
far less happy result. So, because our allies were both 
able and glad to supply us from their surplus store, 
and because it was the only way that we could obtain 
immediate delivery of certain things without which 
our armies could not fight, we purchased artillery 
abroad, as well as ammunition for that artillery; we 
also purchased airplanes, automatic rifles, clothing, 
food, surgical instruments, medicinal supplies; we 
sent our forestry battalions into the French forests 
for lumber — they produced 50,000,000 feet in the 



222 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

month of October, 191 7, alone; we quarried their 
stone to build our roads; we drew on their reservoirs 
for water — all highly proper courses of action, adopted 
with the fullest approval of France and England, and, 
indeed, at their express suggestion, for the purpose of 
utilizing the available ship tonnage of the world to the 
best and quickest advantage in effecting the defeat 
of our common enemy. Critics have brought the 
charge that we purchased ordnance from our allies, 
intimating that it was a scandalous proceeding for 
which the Ordnance Department should hang its head 
in shame. Yet I do not recall that those critics ever 
completed the story by stating that we sold to our 
allies ordnance and raw materials for ordnance to a 
value jive times greater than our purchases from them. 

But even with free access to and unlimited credit 
in the markets of the world, grave questions of priority 
had to be decided; the impending exhaustion of the 
world's resources in certain raw materials and certain 
classes of skilled labor demanded constantly increasing 
consideration. It was of paramount importance, of 
course, that our own preparations for war should not 
in the slightest degree delay or lessen the assistance 
which we had been rendering our allies, and which 
thefy had come to regard as perhaps the most important 
factor in calculating their ability to hold the enemy in 
check until our military effort could become effective. 
Furthermore, there had to be taken into consideration 
the demands of the American Navy, which required 
heavy forgings and other material, as well as trained 
labor, of the very type so necessary for the solution of 



ORDNANCE 223 

the army ordnance problem. On the assumption that 
it would be of little avail to build ordnance for use in 
the field in France unless there were cargo-ships in 
which to transport it and war-ships to protect those 
cargo-boats against submarine attack, the require- 
ments of army ordnance were made secondary to the 
demands of our allies, of our navy, and of our merchant 
marine. 

The supreme difficulty encountered in the solu- 
tion of the ordnance problem is best stated in the words 
of the Honorable Winston Churchill, then British Min- 
ister of Munitions, in his report to the British War 
Council for the year 191 7: 

"In the fourth year of the war we are no longer 
tapping the stored-up resources of national industry 
or mobilizing them and applying them for the first 
time to war. The magnitude of the effort and of 
achievement approximates continually to the limits of 
possibihty. Already in many directions the frontiers 
are in sight. It is therefore not necessary merely to 
expand, but to go back over the ground already cov- 
ered and by more economical processes, by closer or- 
ganization, and by thrifty and harmonious methods to 
glean and gather a further reinforcement of war 
power." 

The situation in which the British found them- 
selves in 191 7, the critical year of the war, as depicted 
by Mr. Churchill, was also, though to an even greater 
degree, the situation of the French, and, to a lesser 
degree, our own. Due to the gradual but increasing 
exhaustion of the world's resources of raw material 



224 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

and skilled labor, the production of ordnance, at first 
merely a manufacturing problem, became more and 
more, as the limit of expansion was produced, a prob- 
lem of securing raw materials, skilled labor, and trans- 
portation. The cumulative effect of the difficulties 
which I have enumerated produced a task of such 
magnitude as to be literally beyond the conception of 
the human mind. It involved the mobilization of sci- 
ence and industry and their co-ordination with the 
military establishment to an extent approaching the 
limits of human endeavor. Indeed, I am indulging in 
no mere peroration, no idle figure of speech, when I 
assert that the Army Ordnance effort represented the 
application of a greater physical effort than was ever 
directed toward the accomplishment of a single pur- 
pose in the history of mankind. 

Just as a track meet consists of various events — 
dashes, distance runs, broad jumps, high jumps, shot- 
putting, and pole-vaults — so there were numerous ele- 
ments comprised in the ordnance problem. For Army 
Ordnance, the declaration of war was the starter's 
pistol; the meeting of requirements by actual de- 
liveries the goal. In estimating any accomplishment, 
whether it be the time in which a sprinter runs a hun- 
dred yards or a horse trots a mile, the altitude reached 
by an aviator or the speed of a transatlantic liner, 
it is necessary to take some accomplishment along the 
same or similar lines as a standard of comparison. It 
is generally admitted by athletes, for example, that 
for a man to run a hundred yards in ten seconds is 
an excellent performance; for him to run the same 



ORDNANCE 225 

distance in nine seconds would be amazing. If, in 
view of this generally accepted standard of what con- 
stitutes a sprinter's utmost exertion, a critic con- 
demned a sprinter for not running a hundred yards in 
eight seconds, or in seven seconds, that critic would be 
branded by all intelligent persons as lacking in knowl- 
edge and judgment. So, in criticising the degree of 
success attained by the Ordnance Department during 
the war, it would be well for the critics to be quite cer- 
tain that they have chosen just standards of compari- 
son, and that they possess a sufficient knowledge of 
the problems involved in ordnance production to 
enable them to recognize a record-breaking perform- 
ance if they saw one. 

Generally speaking, it may be said that those 
phases of the ordnance programme which had the 
shorter time limits were unqualifiedly successful. 
There was never a time when the production of 
smokeless powder and high explosives did not equal 
our own requirements and still leave us with a surplus 
sufficient to provide large quantities for both France 
and England. 

During the nineteen months of our participation 
in the war we produced over 2,500,000 rifles, a quantity 
greater than that produced during the same period by 
France (1,400,000) or by England (1,970,000), and this 
notwithstanding our handicap of a standing start. To 
use a fairer method of comparison, the average monthly 
production of France during July, August, and Sep- 
tember, 1918, was 40,500; of England, 112,821; of the 
United States, 233,562. In other words, to again make 



226 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

use of the athletic simile, not only did America cover a 
greater total distance during the same period of time, 
but when the race was called off by the signing of the 
Armistice we were producing rifles at a rate double 
that of England and five times that of France. 

Of small-arms ammunition (for pistols, rifles, and 
machine-guns) there were produced between April 6, 
1917, and November 11, 1918, 2,879,148,000 rounds, a 
total equivalent to three cartridges for every minute 
which has elapsed since the beginning of the Christian 
era ! True, this total fell slightly below that of Eng- 
land (3,486,127,000) and of France (2,983,675,000) for 
the same period, but it must be remembered that those 
nations had developed highly efficient manufacturing 
methods as the result of the experience they had gained 
during their nearly three years of war prior to our 
entry into the conflict. Notwithstanding their run- 
ning start, before the Armistice we attained a speed 
in the manufacture of small-arms ammunition double 
that of France and 10 per cent greater than England's. 

During that period that we were at war we pro- 
duced 181,662 machine-guns, a total slightly greater 
than that of England (181,404) and slightly less than 
that of France (229,238), but here again a comparison 
of total production is hardly a fair statement of rela- 
tive accomplishment, for in machine-gun manufacture 
an enormous length of time is required to build fac- 
tories, to equip them with machine tools, to design the 
necessary jigs, fixtures, dies, millers, profiles, and the 
innumerable limit gauges for testing the precision of 
the various parts. A fairer basis of comparison — the 



ORDNANCE 227 

average monthly rate of production during the months 
immediately preceding the signing of the Armistice — 
shows that America was producing 27,270 machine- 
guns and automatic rifles a month — more than twice 
as many as France and nearly three times as many as 
England. 

As to artillery ammunition, let us take the pro- 
duction of shell for the 7 5 -mm. guns. Of this calibre 
we had produced 4,250,000 high-explosive shell, more 
than 500,000 gas-shell, and over 7,250,000 shrapnel 
when the Armistice was signed. From January 18, 
19 18, when the first complete American division entered 
the line, until firing ceased ten months later, our gun- 
ners used 6,250,000 rounds of 75-mm. ammunition. 
Prior to the Armistice we had shipped to France about 
8,500,000 shell of this same calibre. Thus it will be 
seen that though American gunners admittedly made 
use of French-made ammunition from the Franco- 
American pool (thereby confirming the worst suspicions 
of the army's critics), each round fired was made good 
prior to the signing of the Armistice with t,^}^ P^^ ^^^^ 
margin. 

Of the artillery programme proper, it is difficult 
to appraise the performance, for the reason that the 
race was called off before it was half run. It will be 
forever difficult to establish beyond question whether 
the American artillery programme at the time of the 
signing of the Armistice was as sufficiently far advanced 
as could be reasonably expected under the circum- 
stances. Any attempt to pass on Ordnance's accom- 
plishment, or lack of accomplishment, in this respect 



228 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

must in Justice take into account the best previous 
performance along these lines. Of all the countries 
engaged in the war the experience of England affords 
the closest parallel to that of the United States in 
respect to the initial stages of industrial and military 
preparation. In determining a standard of perform- 
ance in the equipping with artillery of a hastily raised 
army by a peace-loving nation, permit me to quote a 
few significant sentences from a statement made by 
the British Ministry of Munitions: 

"It is very difficult to say how long it was before 
the British Army was thoroughly equipped with artil- 
lery and ammunition. The ultimate size of the army 
aimed at was continually increased during the first 
three years of the war, so that the ordnance require- 
ments were continually increasing. It is probably true 
to say that the equipment of the Army as planned 
in the early summer of 191 5 was completed by Sep- 
tember, 19 16. As a result, however, of the battle of 
Verdun and the early stages of the battle of the 
Somme, a great change was made in the standard of 
equipment per division of the Army, followed by fur- 
ther increases in September, 1916. The Army was not 
completely equipped on this new scale until spring, 
1918." 

Thus it will be seen that it took England nearly 
four years to completely equip her army with artillery 
and ammunition. On that basis we had two years 
and five months to go before incomplete equipment 
with American-made artillery could have been con- 
demned, with justification, as poor performance. The 



ORDNANCE 229 

nineteen months which the war lasted after America's 
entry did not give sufficient time for our industrial 
power to make itself fully felt. Even so, I don't sup- 
pose that any one, save perhaps the profiteers, would 
wish the war to have lasted long enough for us to 
prove that we could produce artillery as rapidly as 
our allies. 

It should be kept in mind that proper strategy 
demanded an ordnance programme designed to insure 
an ultimate overwhelming and continuous rate of pro- 
duction rather than a lesser rate of production at an 
earher date. What I wish to get across to you (par- 
don the slang) is that the primary object of Ordnance 
was not to obtain immediate production of enough 
artillery and ammunition to equip our little First Con- 
tingent, but to obtain a rate of production which would 
provide for the equipment of the army of 5,000,000 
men which it had been decided to raise. Now it is 
perfectly obvious to any one that a housewife could 
buy a stove and bake a dozen loaves of bread in far 
less time than would be required to build a bakery and 
bake enough bread to feed an entire city. But the 
rate of production from the housewife's oven would 
never feed the city. So it was with ordnance. By 
the sacrifice of far more important considerations, there 
is no doubt that enough guns could have been pro- 
duced in a comparatively short time to equip the first 
few divisions. In order to do this, time was required 
for building plants capable of such a rate of produc- 
tion. We had to obtain designs and even, in certain 
cases, to discard existing designs, in order to get manu- 



230 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

facturing plants on a basis permitting such a rate of 
production. It would have been madness to have sac- 
rificed production in 1920 to force a quicker but far 
smaller production in 19 18. The Ordnance Depart- 
ment was not directing its efforts to obtain for Ameri- 
can arms an immediate but isolated success, gratifying 
as such a success would have been to American pride; 
instead it was building a machine which would make 
an ultimate and sweeping victory absolutely certain. 

No branch of the army took up its war-task under 
such discouraging conditions as the Ordnance De- 
partment. It had 97 officers; it needed 10,000. But 
where were they to come from? It was and is impos- 
sible to improvise ordnance experts, like those of pre- 
war times, who were required to possess a thorough 
knowledge of all phases of ordnance work from design 
and development through procurement, production, 
and inspection to the supply of troops. But upon 
the outbreak of hositiHties thousands of engineers, 
graduates of the world's most famous technical in- 
stitutions and many of them with wide experience in 
their respective branches of the engineering profession, 
offered their services to the Ordnance Department, 
and it is very largely due to their ability, experience, 
and devotion that the solution of many of Ordnance's 
most perplexing problems is due. The industrial field, 
too, yielded a generous contribution of its best ability. 
To these men were often given strange tasks. They 
were called upon to procure materials with which they 
were unfamiliar in markets where no readily available 
supply existed. They had to design and erect com- 
plete manufacturing plants and to teach manufactur- 



ORDNANCE 231 

ing methods which they themselves often had first to 
learn. Time after time they were ordered to manu- 
facture articles of which they had never so much as 
seen a specimen before they entered the army. A 
huge personnel had to be organized to care for the 
inspection of this enormous volume of varied material, 
to prove it by means of firing tests at Aberdeen and 
elsewhere, and to develop it from the first rough model 
through all the interminable stages to the point of 
successful quantity production. 

The advice, wishes, and requirements of our allies 
were given full consideration, often at a sacrifice of 
natural national pride. On their advice or at their 
formally expressed desire, we in many cases undertook 
the manufacture of components instead of complete 
assembled units: powder for propelling charges and 
high explosives for bursting charges of ammunition, 
instead of assembled shell complete in smaller quan- 
tity; black or rough-machined forgings for cannon, 
projectiles or recuperators in place of the corresponding 
finished articles; motors and structural steel work for 
standardized tanks for joint use in lieu of a smaller 
number of complete units for the use of our armies 
alone. We yielded priority on raw material sorely 
needed to make our own programme a success, but 
even more desperately needed by our allies to stave 
off defeat until we should arrive in force. 

Every 15 pounds of finished smokeless powder re- 
quires 14 pounds of cotton and 700 pounds of mixed 
acid for its nitration, so we made the gun-cotton to 
the extent of more than 500,000,000 pounds on this 
side of the water, thus saving the excess tonnage that 



232 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

would have been required for the shipment of the raw 
materials. A similar condition obtained with regard 
to high explosives. Guided by the same sound prin- 
ciple, we shipped in bulk enough pierced shell blanks 
to keep the French and British factories going to the 
limit of their capacity, and so on through the endless 
list of articles or components required for our common 
use. For, be it remembered, it was not our war alone. 
The quality of our product is attested by the 
almost pathetic eagerness of the poilu to acquire an 
American rifle with its beautifully adjusted sights, its 
admirable breech mechanism, and its rimless, non- 
jamming ammunition; by the universally acknowledged 
excellence of the American automatic pistol; by the 
purchase by the French Government of 550 155-mm. 
howitzers built in America from French designs; by 
the cabled request of the French Government for a 
continuous supply of 3,000 Browning machine-guns 
every month and 50,000,000 cartridges for them, after 
witnessing their performance under battle conditions; 
by the general order from British General Headquarters 
directing that on account of its greater uniformity, and 
consequent less danger to the troops advancing under 
its protection, only American-made powder be used for 
artillery barrages — all these are tributes to American 
science, American engineering, and American industry, 
as exemplified in American ordnance, by qualified 
judges who were backing their opinions with their lives. 

American artillery may be roughly divided into 
four classes: light, medium, heavy, and railway. The 







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ORDNANCE 233 

light artillery consists of two t3^es : the little, hard-hit- 
ting 37-mm. infantry-accompanying cannon, operated 
by two men, primarily designed for knocking out "pill- 
boxes" and machine-gun nests and, with a shortened 
barrel, for use in tanks, and the 75-mm. field-gun, an 
American adaptation of the famous French soixante- 
quinze, which, according to the admission of the French 
themselves, it in several respects excelled. Three types 
of weapons are included in the medium-calibre class: 
the 4.7-inch field-gun, which we had adopted and had 
manufactured in small quantities prior to our entrance 
into the war; the 155-mm. G. P. F.. (Grand Puissance 
Fillonx), really a big brother of the "seventy-five," 
with correspondingly increased power and range, de- 
signed for interdicting crossroads and harassing the 
enemy's middle areas, and the 155-mm. howitzer, which 
with its plunging fire is admirably adapted for trench 
and dugout demolition. In mobile heavy artillery we 
have the 8-inch and 9. 2 -inch howitzers, likewise de- 
signed primarily for demolition purposes. And, finally, 
the great 8, 10, 12, 14, and 16 inch pieces — guns, howit- 
zers, and mortars — mounted on and fired from specially 
designed railway-trucks suited to the French road-beds 
— for incessant pounding of the depots, dumps, head- 
quarters, and railways far behind the enemy's lines. 
In addition to the above there are, of course, the vari- 
ous types of antiaircraft artillery, mainly of 75-mm. 
calibre, and the trench-mortars, ranging in size from 
the 3 -inch Stokes, fight enough to go over the top 
with the first wave of an attack and simple enough to 
be fired when supported only by the knees of a squat- 



234 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

ting soldier, up to the 240-mm. trench-mortar of posi- 
tion, whose great shell can blow the stoutest concrete 
fortification to smithereens. We also had in use at 
various times small numbers of miscellaneous calibres 
and types, but, as the result of the policy of reducing 
the number of types in order to simplify the problem 
of ammunition supply, our artillery had become fairly 
well standardized by the closing months of the war. 

Years ago — though not nearly so long ago as it 
seems — when artillery was still hauled into position by 
sweating gun-teams, a veteran ordnance officer, ad- 
dressing a scientific society, told his hearers that the 
weight of artillery was governed by the limited power 
of the horse. As a horse has a sustained pulling power 
of only 650 pounds, he explained, it was obvious that 
a 6-horse gun-team could not pull a gun and limber 
weighing more than 3,900 pounds. "If Divine Provi- 
dence had given the horse the speed of the deer and 
the power of an elephant," he added, "we might have 
had a far wider and more effective range for our mobile 
artillery." Could that officer have looked a few years 
into the future he would have been astonished to see 
that, thanks largely to the genius of a Californian 
named Holt, there would be substituted for the horse a 
curious contrivance known as the caterpillar tractor, 
which possesses many times the power of an elephant. 
Though the tractor cannot be claimed, by any stretch of 
the imagination, to have the speed of a deer, it never- 
theless has sufficient speed to keep pace with the infan- 
try, or, indeed, should it become necessary, with cav- 
alry. Few people appear to realize how enormous were 



ORDNANCE 235 

the savings in men, animals, feed, railway facilities, and 
ocean tonnage effected by the motorization of our ar- 
tillery. The motorization of one 155-mm. howitzer 
regiment saved 1,440 horses. One tractor for this 
howitzer is the equivalent of sixteen heavy draft-horses 
and three riding-horses, yet it is so compact that it 
occupies in packing a space of but 360 cubic feet, and 
can be operated by two men. Tractors are not only 
easier to conceal from enemy observation than horses, 
but a shell-burst which would kill every horse in a 
battery, would leave an armored tractor uninjured. 
Not long ago, at the Aberdeen Proving-Ground, one 
of these tractors, on which was mounted an 8-inch 
howitzer, sent through a dense wood, ran squarely into 
a live locust-tree which was seventeen inches thick at 
the base. Before the onslaught of the tractor the tree 
went down as though it were made of cardboard, where- 
upon the amazing machine crawled over the fallen 
trunk, slid into and clambered out of a ravine, emerged 
from the wood and took up its firing position — all in 
scarcely more time than it takes to tell of it. Before 
the war ended virtually every piece of American me- 
dium and heavy artillery was either tractor-mounted 
or tractor-drawn, and we were on the road toward 
motorizing the field-artillery — the "seventy-fives" — as 
well. 

But, though the General Staff of the A. E. F. de- 
manded mobility for the artillery, it also demanded 
increased weight and range. To meet this requirement 
there were devised various types of railway-artillery, 
ranging in size from 7 to 16 inch, thereby making 



236 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

available for use on the battle-front numerous guns 
from our seacoast fortifications which could not have 
been used otherwise. Early in the war the Army bor- 
rowed from the Navy a number of 7-inch naval rifles 
on pedestal mounts, for which the Ordnance Depart- 
ment provided specially designed gun-cars, thus af- 
fording a powerful and yet mobile form of defense for 
our coasts in the event of submarine attack. The 
next performance worthy of note was the mounting 
on railway-cars of ninety-six 8-inch guns taken from 
various seacoast fortifications. Both of the above 
types of gun, as well as the 12-inch mortars, were 
mounted on the so-called Barbette carriage, which 
permits of all-round fire at any desired elevation. The 
lo-inch seacoast rifle and all sizes above it were 
mounted on the BatignoUes type of carriage, which 
depends primarily on the track arrangement for its 
direction of fire. Both the Barbette and BatignoUes 
mounts had, after the initial setting, all the character- 
istics of fixed emplacements, but with the added advan- 
tage of being able to advance or retire with a minimum 
loss of time. A third type of railway-mount, which 
was used very successfully by the French and which 
was being adapted for certain of our 10, 12, and 14 inch 
guns when the war ended, was tlie Schneider, or sliding 
type of mount. Though this mount also depends upon 
the track arrangement for its direction of fire, it has 
none of the features of a fixed emplacement, the force 
of the recoil being taken up by permitting the entire 
mount to slide back on the track during the recoil of 
the gun. The " Chilean project," as it was known, con- 



ORDNANCE 237 

sisted in mounting six 12 -inch guns, which had been 
manufactured in the United States for Chile and were 
on the point of dehvery when they were comman- 
deered by our government, on special sHding mounts 
designed by the Ordnance Department. Still another 
venture was the mounting for railway use of a number 
of 14-inch guns loaned by the Navy to the War De- 
partment. But the most ambitious project under- 
taken by Ordnance in connection with railway-artillery 
was the production of the huge 16-inch howitzer, to 
manufacture sixty-two of which an entirely new shop 
had to be erected by the Midvale Steel Company. 
This, the heaviest railway-mount of American design, 
weighs, with its gun, nearly a million pounds. The 
design and production of a device which would absorb 
its recoil of seven million pounds was in itself no incon- 
siderable engineering problem. Each of these monster 
railway-cannon has its own train, consisting of standard 
and narrow-gauge ammunition-cars, as well as cars for 
tools, for spare parts, for repair work, and for the crews. 
Huge as they are, rivalling in range and power any- 
thing which the Germans had at Metz or the British at 
Gibraltar, they are extremely mobile, any one of them 
being able to drop its load of high explosive far behind 
the enemy's lines, "pull stakes," and be miles away 
before the enemy could get its range. 

Speaking of the range of artillery, some truly 
amazing results in this field were achieved by Major 
Forest Ray Moulton, one of America's foremost math- 
ematicians, who was professor of astronomy in the 
University of Chicago before he was given a commis- 



238 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

sion in the Engineering Division of Ordnance and 
turned his knowledge of ballistics to military account. 
One usually thinks of a professor of astronomy as a 
highly impractical person whose mind is absorbed in 
comets, meteors, and stars, yet no individual in the 
armies of the United States did as much as Doctor 
Moulton toward perfecting devices for killing Germans 
at long range. Here is a sample of his achievements. 
As the result of a series of abstruse calculations he 
made a change in the shape of the copper driving-band 
on the 6-inch shell, whereby, without adding to the 
powder charge and with no modification whatever in 
the gun, he increased its range two and a half miles. 
What is even more remarkable and important, he so 
reduced the variation between successive shots that a 
given number of shell will fall into one-eighth the area 
formerly covered by their dispersion. Had the war 
continued a year or so longer, there is no saying where 
Doctor Moulton's ballistic discoveries would have led. 
It was evidently of one of the shell designed by him 
that the negro soldier remarked: 

"Ah could staht runnin' at brekfus'-time an' that 
theah shell 'ud git me jes' when Ah got home foah 
suppah." 

Whereupon his companion exclaimed scornfully: 
"All one of dem shells wants is jes' yo' address, 
niggah — ^jes' yo' address." 

No phase of the Ordnance Department's work 
during the war came in for such severe criticism as the 
adoption and production of machine-guns. Now it so 



ORDNANCE 239 

happens that I am thoroughly famihar with the de- 
tails of the long and bitter controversy which began 
with the original rejection by the Ordnance Depart- 
ment of the Lewis gun and which ended with the 
eventual adoption of the Browning. Many of the at- 
tacks made on the War Department by the supporters 
of Colonel Lewis, as well as in the editorial columns 
of the newspapers, were not justified by the facts and 
showed an incomplete knowledge of the circumstances, 
yet, as an impartial observer with some inside knowl- 
edge of the situation, I freely admit that for certain 
of the criticisms there was ample justification. Let 
me remind you, moreover, that the Lewis being con- 
siderably heavier than the Browning machine-rifle and 
much lighter than the Browning machine-gun, could 
not satisfactorily have taken the place of either. With 
which passing comment we will let the machine-gun 
controversy rest. 

Machine-guns of the so-called heavy type had been 
developed to a serviceable stage at the time of the 
Spanish-American War, but neither then nor in subse- 
quent conflicts did they receive anything like the 
attention which they attracted immediately after the 
outbreak of the war in Europe. The Germans had 
apparently realized better than any one else the value 
of machine-guns in the kind of fighting which they 
expected to be engaged in, having had, it is reported, 
50,000 machine-guns when hostilities opened. Amer- 
ican appreciation of the role destined to be played 
in warfare by machine-guns is best evidenced by the 
fact that, when we entered the war, our tables of 



240 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

organization gave to each regiment four machine- 
guns! 

When war was declared there were on hand in 
this country approximately 670 Benet-Mercie machine- 
rifles, 285 Maxim machine-guns, and 350 Lewis guns 
chambered for British ammunition. The machine-gun 
manufacturing facilities in the United States were also 
more limited than were the facilities for rifle manufac- 
ture, by reason of the fact that England and France 
had depended on their domestic resources to supply 
the bulk of their machine-guns. As a result there were 
only two plants in the United States which were actu- 
aUy producing machine-guns in quantity when hostfli- 
ties began. Six days after our entry into the war the 
War Department ordered 1,300 Lewis guns (which 
order was subsequently increased) and, in June, 2,500 
Colt guns, which were to be used for training purposes. 
The first division to be sent abroad was necessarily 
armed with the all-but-obsolete Benet-Mercie machine- 
rifle, but upon its arrival in France the French Gov- 
ernment offered to equip the division with Hotchkiss 
machine-guns and Chauchat machine-rifles — the same 
automatic arms which the French had been using for 
three years. The offer was thankfuUy accepted, not 
only for the first division but for a nuipber of succeed- 
ing divisions, thus insuring a supply of automatic 
weapons for our troops until we were in a position to 
supply them ourselves. 

The result of a series of machine-gun tests held by 
a board appointed by the Secretary of War in May, 
191 7, proved conclusively that the gun invented by 



ORDNANCE 241 

John M. Browning, a Utah gunsmith who already pos- 
sessed a wide reputation as an inventor of automatic 
weapons, was the best type of heavy machine-gun 
known to the board, and that the light automatic rifle, 
also an invention of Browning, was likewise the most 
efficient weapon of its type. The Lewis and the Vick- 
ers, both of which had been extensively used by the 
British since the opening days of the war, were also 
favorably reported upon and it was recommended that 
their manufacture be continued. Acting on the recom- 
mendation of the board, the Ordnance Department 
immediately increased its orders for Lewis guns, placed 
orders with the Colt's Patent Fire Arms Manufacturing 
Company for Browning machine-rifles and machine- 
guns, and began the development of large manufactur- 
ing facilities for the last-named types in order that 
the quantities required could be produced within the 
time specified. Although the Colt Company was the 
owner of an exclusive right to build machine-guns and 
automatic rifles under the Browning patents, the Ord- 
nance Department early recognized that no single 
plant could hope to produce a sufficient number of 
these weapons to meet the constantly increasing re- 
quirements of our armies. Arrangements were there- 
fore made with the Colt Company and with the in- 
ventor, Mr. Browning, for the surrender of their ex- 
clusive rights, the United States being granted author- 
ity to manufacture these weapons wherever it saw fit 
during the period of the war. As a result of this ener- 
getic, action, by the early part of 1918 the Savage 
Arms Company at Utica, New York, was producing 



242 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

Lewis guns of the flexible type for use on aircraft (the 
large orders for Lewis ground guns having been di- 
verted to aircraft use upon the cabled recommendation 
of General Pershing); the Marlin-Rockwell Corpora- 
tion at New Haven was manufacturing large quantities 
of Marlin Aircraft machine-guns of the synchronized 
type; the Colt's Company was building Vickers ma- 
chine-guns of the heavy mobile type, while various 
factories selected by the Ordnance Department be- 
cause of their facilities were energetically tooling up 
for the immense production of Browning machine- 
guns and automatic rifles which later followed. Early 
in March, 191 8, the Winchester Repeating Arms Com- 
pany, to whom, as the result of the arrangement 
already referred to, the Browning plans and specifica- 
tions had been turned over, produced the first Browning 
rifles, and two months later the New England Westing- 
house Company turned out the first Browning machine- 
guns. When the Armistice was signed, the American 
Expeditionary Forces had been equipped with 41,348 
Browning heavy machine-guns and 48,082 Browning 
rifles. 

As the MarHn Aircraft machine-gun was available 
and was giving a considerable degree of satisfaction, 
no particular effort was made to push the development 
of the Browning Aircraft machine-gun, as it was feared 
that to do so might interfere with the production of 
the Browning machine-gun for ground use. Only a 
few hundred Browning Aircraft guns had, therefore, 
been produced up to the time of the Armistice. These 
had, however, been satisfactorily synchronized so as to 




Photograph hy Signal Corps. U. S. A. 



JOHN M. BROWNING, THE IN\ENTOR OF THE PISTOL, RIFLE, AND MACHINE GUN 

WHICH BEARS HIS NAME. 

Mr. Browning is holding the automatic ritle which he invented. 




Plinlograpli hy Sii;>ial C'Uf'. l' ^ I 

THE BROWNING HE.WY MACHINE GUN. 
This, the deadliest weapon of the war, can fire at the rate of i,ooo shots a minute. 




A RIFLE ;.K1..\AI>u:k. 
His rifle is fitted with a "tromblon" for firing rifle-grenade 



ORDNANCE 243 

fire through the airplane propellers, and had been 
speeded up to the amazing rate of fire of 1,300 shots per 
minute. 

Upon their arrival in Europe the two Browning 
weapons created a marked sensation both in the armies 
of the Allies and in our own forces. Not only were 
they exquisite examples of the gunsmith's art but they 
could pour lead into the enemy at an unheard-of rate, 
they were to all intents and purposes foolproof, and 
they proved themselves capable of standing up under 
the most trying conditions. The Browning automatic 
rifle in particular, as beautifully finished and balanced 
as a trap-shooter's double-barrel, formed a striking 
contrast to the clumsy French Chauchat, which looked 
as though it had been made by a village blacksmith. 
During the summer of 1918 our government was ap- 
proached by representatives of England, France, and 
Belgium with inquiries as to the possibility of sufficient 
Brownings being produced to supply their armies as 
well as our own. 

The 79th was the first division to enter the line 
equipped with Browning automatic rifles and machine- 
guns. In view of the various criticisms of these weap- 
ons which have appeared from time to time in the 
American press, it seems worth while to quote from 
the report of the Ordnance Machine- Gun Officer of 
that division: 

"The guns went into the front fine for the first 
time in the night of September 13 th. The sector was 
quiet and the guns were practically not used at all 
until the advance, starting September 26th. In the 



244 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

action which followed, the guns were used on several 
occasions for overhead fire, one company firing 10,000 
rounds per gun into a wood in which there were enemy 
machine-gun nests, at a range of 2,000 metres. Al- 
though the conditions were extremely unfavorable for 
machine-guns on account of rain and mud, the guns 
performed well. Machine-gun officers reported that 
during the engagement the guns came up to the fullest 
expectations, and even though covered with rust and 
using muddy ammunition, they functioned whenever 
called upon to do so." 

The design and adoption of the Browning gun not 
only gave our armies the most efficient and dependable 
weapon of its kind in the world, but it saved the Ameri- 
can taxpayer $75,000,000. This figure is based on the 
difference in cost to the government of the Browning 
and its nearest equivalent, the Vickers — the latter at 
a price representing its cost after having been in war 
production for three years. The design and adoption 
of the Browning automatic rifle gave us far and away 
the best weapon of that type possessed by any army, 
and it saved the government nearly $13,000,000 — not 
a very large figure, it is true, compared with war ex- 
penditures, but nevertheless worth saving. 

When the war ended we had on hand 52,000 
Browning automatic rifles and 29,000 Chauchats — a 
total sufficient to arm an army of approximately 
3,500,000 men. On the same date there were com- 
pleted 3,340 Hotchkiss, 9,337 Vickers, and 42,050 
Browning guns, thus giving us enough heavy machine- 
guns to equip over 200 divisions, or an army of approx- 



ORDNANCE 245 

imately 7,000,000 men. Thus it will be seen that, 
no matter what the future has in store for us, it will 
be a long time before we will have occasion to worry- 
about a shortage in machine-guns. 

Though less novel and, therefore, less interesting 
than certain other products of Ordnance, there were 
six items, all produced in stupendous quantities, which 
rendered greater service than all the big guns, tanks, 
and airplanes put together in nailing down the coffin- 
lid on Germany's dream of world domination. I refer 
to rifles, pistols, revolvers, bayonets, helmets, and 
small-arms ammunition. They, with the gas-respira- 
tor, the water-bottle, the cartridge-belt, and the pack, 
constituted the equipment of the fighting Yank. They 
were the infantryman's tools of trade. 

When the news of the sinking of the Lusitania 
reached Paris, I heard the then American Ambas- 
sador to France assert, in the words of Mr. William 
Jennings Bryan, whose appointee he was, that were 
the United States to enter the war, a million men 
would spring to arms overnight. 

'I'll admit, Mr. Ambassador," said a sceptical 
listener, "that we might get the million men. But 
where would we get the arms ? " 

"We'd stamp 'em out, sir," replied the diplomat. 
"We'd stamp 'em out the way we stamp out tin plates." 

But, unfortunately, the matter of supplying weap- 
ons for our fighting forces was very far from being as 
simple as the ambassador seemed to think, for the 
modern high-power service rifle is a delicately adjusted 



246 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

and highly finished piece of mechanism, to manufac- 
ture which requires the finest quality of materials and 
the highest grade of expert workmanship. So, though 
we did not realize the dream of the ambassador by pro- 
ducing arms for a million men overnight, American 
Ordnance performed a feat almost as amazing by pro- 
ducing enough rifles to equip an army of seven million 
men in less than fifteen months. 

Some years before our entry into the war a parsi- 
monious Congress reduced the appropriations for the 
manufacture of small arms and small-arms ammunition 
to such an extent that it was found necessary to shut 
down the rifle-plant at the Rock Island Arsenal and to 
greatly reduce the output of rifles at the Springfield 
Armory and of cartridges at the Frankford Arsenal. 
This resulted, as might have been foreseen, in the dis- 
persion of the large force of highly skilled workmen 
who had been in government employ, most of them 
seeking occupation with private concerns or turning to 
other vocations. When, therefore, our entry into the 
Great War made it necessary to take up the manufac- 
ture of small arms and ammunition on an unprece- 
dented scale, the War Department was dismayed to 
find that it did not have nearly enough workmen, and 
that, owing to the enormous wages which were then 
being paid in other industries, it could not get them. 
Thus it became necessary, in order to obtain an imme- 
diate and adequate supply of weapons for the great 
new armies which we were raising, to enhst the co- 
operation of private manufacturers. 

The three leading manufacturers of small arms in 



ORDNANCE 247 

this country — the Winchester Repeating Fire Arms 
Company of New Haven, Conn., the Remington Arms- 
Union Metallic Cartridge Company of Ilion, N. Y., 
and the Remington Arms Company of Eddystone, Pa. 
— ^were devoting themselves at this time to the manu- 
facture of the British .303 rifle, the production of 
which, however, due to the decrease in the require- 
ments of the British Government, was gradually slow- 
ing down. But, though these plants had every facility 
for turning out in large quantities the British .303 
Enfield, it would have required many months for them 
to alter their tools and machinery for the manufacture 
of the .30-calibre Springfield, which was the standard 
arm of the American service. The Ordnance Depart- 
ment found itself confronted, therefore, by three alter- 
natives. It could change the equipment of these 
plants so as to permit of the manufacture of Spring- 
field rifles — a proceeding which would have involved a 
delay of several months; it could adopt the British 
Enfield, which would also have necessitated the adop- 
tion of another calibre of ammunition — an unthinkable 
thing in time of war; or it could utilize the facilities of 
these three great plants by modifying the British rifle 
so that it would take American ammunition. The lat- 
ter coiu-se was decided on. 

The modification consisted in changing the mag- 
azine, chamber, and bore of the Enfield rifle so that it 
would take the U. S. service .30-calibre rimless cartridge 
instead of the British .303 rim cartridge. So rapidly 
were the plans worked out, the drawings and specifica- 
tions produced ^ and sample rifles submitted and tested. 



248 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

that within less than eight weeks after the declaration 
of war orders were given to Winchester and the two 
Remington concerns for a million '' modified Enfields," 
as the new weapons were called. Putting aside the 
keen trade rivalry which had formerly existed, the 
three plants virtually operated as one mammoth rifle 
factory, so that when one shop found itself short of 
parts it was promptly supplied from another where 
there was a surplus. The combined factories had so 
fully gotten into their stride by the fall of 1918 that, 
when the Armistice was signed, they were turning out 
approximately 10,000 rifles a day, this being in addition, 
remember, to the spare parts which were being manu- 
factured at all three plants as well as in the govern- 
ment establishments at Rock Island and Springfield. 
The records show that more than 2,500,000 rifles had 
been accepted by November 9, 1918. Add to this the 
600,000 Springfields and the 160,000 Krag-Jorgensens 
which we had on hand at the beginning of the war, the 
280,000 rifles which had been manufactured for Russia 
but which were taken over by the United States, and 
the 20,000 Ross rifles purchased from Canada, and it 
wiU be seen that we had a total of more than 3,500,000 
rifles. As only about one-half of the troops in an 
American division carry rifles, we had, therefore, 
enough weapons to equip an army of 7,000,000 men. 

In spite of the endless complications due to the 
use by our forces during the early days of the war of 
French machine-guns and automatic rifles of a calibre 
different from our own, and to the insistent demands 
of the Air Service for special types of cartridges — ■ 



ORDNANCE 249 

tracer, armor-piercing, and incendiary — there was never 
a time when we did not have enough small-arms am- 
munition to supply our forces in the field. I might 
mention in this connection that one of the most per- 
plexing problems which had to be solved by Ordnance 
was the manufacture of ammunition which would 
function equally well in two rifles — the Springfield and 
the Enfield — and in seven different types of machine- 
gun — the Benet-Mercie, the Lewis, the Vickers, the 
Colt, the Marlin, and the light and heavy Brownings. 
In these machine-guns the firing-pin points, or strikers, 
are different in shape and size and function differently, 
each giving a different weight of blow on the primers 
of the cartridge, yet, notwithstanding this handicap, 
the success of the American ammunition in this respect 
was remarkable. The daily average of small-arms 
ammunition manufactured in the United States reached 
the enormous total of 14,900,000 completed rounds — • 
a production equal to that of England and France put 
together. The total number of cartridges of all classes 
produced up to the end of the war was 3,500,000,000; 
enough, if placed tip to primer, to put a girdle of brass 
and steel around the globe. 

At the outbreak of the war the Colt automatic 
pistol, of .45 calibre, was the standard arm of the 
American Army. This pistol was manufactured by 
Colt's at Hartford, Conn., and by the government at 
the Springfield Armory. The Ordnance Department 
quickly realized, however, that even the combined 
capacity of these two plants would prove wholly in- 
adequate to meet the demands of the new armies, 



2SO THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

whereupon it obtained permission from the War De- 
partment to supplement the supply of automatics 
with arms of other types, particularly Colt and Smith 
& Wesson .45-calibre revolvers — the famous "six 
shooters" of the plains. These revolvers did not take 
the rimless, or cannelured-head, cartridge used in the 
pistols, but this difficulty was overcome by means of 
a loading-clip, which had the additional advantage of 
enabling them to be loaded almost as quickly as an 
automatic. The revolver, which is somewhat less 
accurate and less powerful than the pistol, and which 
is considerably more tiring for the user, was adopted 
as an emergency measure only, due to the imperative 
necessity of supplying the troops. The demands of 
the A. E. F. increased so rapidly, however, that in 
the summer of 1918 contracts were let to eight other 
firms possessing equipment which could be converted 
to the manufacture of pistols and revolvers. It is 
interesting to note that among the concerns which 
turned from the manufacture of essentially peace-time 
devices to the production of implements for killing the 
Hun were the Burroughs Adding Machine Company 
and the National Cash Register Company. At the 
signing of the Armistice, there had been produced a 
grand total of 375,000 pistols and 268,000 revolvers, 
and the rate of production was rapidly increasing, 
thereby bringing us within sight of the day when, in 
accordance with the plans of the General Staff, it would 
be possible to arm every American soldier with that 
characteristically American weapon, the "shooting- 



ORDNANCE 251 

Another innovation introduced by the Great War 
was the steel helmet, which, barring a few European 
heavy cavalry regiments, had not been used by any 
civilized anny since Cromwell's time. The British 
helmet was originally adopted by our forces as a tem- 
porary expedient, in order to gain time until experi- 
ments would show whether it was possible to produce 
a better one. After a lengthy series of tests, however, 
it was decided to retain the British model, manufac- 
tured from steel with a considerable manganese alloy, 
rolled by an American process. Any possibility of the 
position of our troops being betrayed by the reflection 
of light from the surfaces of their "tin hats," as was 
occasionally the case with the Germans' steel head- 
gear, was eliminated by dipping the helmet in olive- 
drab paint, scattering sawdust over the surface with a 
blast of air, and then repainting after the first coat had 
hardened, thus producing an extremely coarse sanded 
appearance. The netting used in the lining of the 
American helmet was, however, a distinct improve- 
ment on the British design, as it lessened the incon- 
venience caused by the very considerable weight — 
slightly over two pounds — and the small pieces of 
rubber around the edge of the lining served to keep the 
metal away from the head, so that even relatively large 
dents caused by bullets or shell splinters did not reach 
the wearer's skull. The task of designing our helmets 
and body armor was intrusted, fittingly enough, to 
Major Bashford Dean, who was admirably fitted for 
the duty by reason of the fact that he has been for 
many years curator of the armor collection in the Met- 



252 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

ropolitan Museum of Art. It is a curious fact, and 
indicative of the extent to which Army Ordnance con- 
verted to war purposes countless peace industries, that 
the steel for our helmets was furnished by the Ameri- 
can Tin Plate Company — no wonder that the soldiers 
called them "tin hats" ! — the linings were produced by 
various shoe manufacturers, and the helmets were 
assembled and painted by the Ford Motor Car Com- 
pany ! 

I tried to make it clear at the very outset of this 
chapter that the story of Ordnance is so stupendous 
that the best I could hope to do in such a narrative as 
this would be to dwell briefly on its most salient points. 
This necessitates my passing by with a few words dis- 
coveries and developments of the greatest interest and 
importance, and of dismissing amazing achievements 
with a paragraph. Take the Nitrate Division of the 
Ordnance Department, for example. Were it to re- 
ceive its due, an entire chapter should be devoted 
merely to outlining its problems, while a whole book 
could be written on how it solved them. 

Nitric acid is the basis of all modern explosives. 
A country possessing no nitric acid would be virtually 
unable to fire a single shot. Before our entry into the 
war we depended for our supply of this essential in- 
gredient upon the sodium-nitrate beds of Chile — the 
only country in the world where nitrates have been 
found. Germany had done the same, having had the 
foresight, moreover, to accumulate a reserve supply 
estimated at 375,000 tons. Had she not taken steps, 
however, to replenish this enormous stock by produc- 



ORDNANCE 253 

ing nitrates from the air by the so-called "fixation 
method," she would inevitably have been compelled 
to capitulate when her supply became exhausted. It 
quickly became apparent that if we continued to rely 
upon Chile for our supply of nitrates we would be 
courting disaster, for Chile, though neutral, had de- 
cided German leanings, and there was always the dan- 
ger, therefore, that German diplomacy or threats 
might cause her to place an embargo on nitrate ex- 
ports. Even had this danger not existed, our avail- 
able tonnage was extremely limited and a few torpedo- 
ings of nitrate ships would have stopped our supply, 
thereby automatically paralyzing our manufacture of 
explosives. It was determined, therefore, to make the 
United States wholly independent of any outside source 
by the erection of four enormous plants for the manu- 
facture of nitrates by the synthetic ammonia and cy- 
anamide processes. 

Two of these projects — U. S. Nitrate Plant No. i, 
at Sheffield, Alabama, and U. S. Nitrate Plant No. 2, 
on the Tennessee River at Muscle Shoals, Alabama — 
were both completed before the signing of the Armis- 
tice. Plant No. I, which has a capacity of about 
22,000 tons of ammonium nitrate a year, cost approxi- 
mately $13,000,000. Plant No. 2 makes five times 
that amount of ammonium nitrate and cost five times 
that sum. Plant No. 3, at East Toledo, Ohio, and 
Plant No. 4, at Ancor, near Cincinnati, were about 
one-quarter completed when the Armistice was signed, 
but, because of the changed conditions governing the 
supply of Chilean nitrates as well as the faciUties which 



254 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

we now possess in Alabama for manufacturing them 
ourselves, they have been discontinued. In addition 
to these enormous projects, a chemical plant was 
erected at Saltville, Virginia, at a cost of $2,750,000, 
for the manufacture of sodium cyanide to be used in 
the production of poison-gas. Though no operations 
are now (May, 1919) being carried on at any of these 
plants, it is believed that their products will be in wide 
demand for farm fertilizers, a project being under con- 
sideration whereby nitrates can be produced at these 
plants and sold to farmers at about three-quarters of 
the price paid for the Chilean product. 

This chapter already so bristles with statistics that 
a few more can do no harm. They may open your 
eyes, moreover, to the magnitude of our preparations 
for producing nitrates — a project which has cost the 
American people more than $120,000,000, but of which 
not I in 10,000 of them has so much as heard. Take 
Plant No. 2, at Muscle Shoals, for example. I would 
be willing to wager almost anything you please that 
you have never heard of Muscle Shoals before. For 
your information it is on the Tennessee River, in 
northern Alabama, about midway between Nashville 
and Chattanooga. The power-house of this plant, 
with its capacity of 135,000 horse-power, has the larg- 
est annual output of any steam-power plant in the 
world, developing two-thirds as much power as all the 
hydroelectric plants at Niagara Falls put together. It 
contains a 90,000 horse-power steam-turbine — the larg- 
est ever built. The ammonia-gas plant is the largest 
in the world. The liquid-air plant is five times larger 



ORDNANCE 255 

than any other installation of its kind in existence. At 
its peak the camp at Muscle Shoals had a total popu- 
lation of 21,000. One of its score or more of mess-halls 
seats 4,000 persons at one time; in it 750 gallons of 
soup have been prepared and 2 tons of meat have 
been roasted for a single meal. More than a thousand 
hogs were raised on the waste from this mess-hall 
alone. (Attention of Mr. Hoover !) The camp laun- 
dry washed 6,000 blankets in a single day. That may 
give you some idea of the labor and money involved in 
preparing to make our own nitrates. 

When it is considered that the personnel of the 
Ordnance Department, at home and overseas, consisted 
of 6,000 officers and nearly 100,000 enlisted men — 
almost as many as we had in the entire Regular Army 
before the war — and that these officers and men were 
called upon to perform work of a highly technical and 
specialized nature, it will be seen how important was 
the work of the Training Division. Among the in- 
numerable activities of this division was the Ordnance 
Engineering School, where in three months a tech- 
nically trained engineer was given an insight into the 
design and manufacture of ordnance materials; the 
Powder School at Carney's Point; the Ordnance 
Supply School at Fort Hancock, and the Machine-Gun 
School at Springfield. In addition to these there was 
a school for tractor operators, a school for instruction 
in the repair and maintenance of ordnance trucks, an- 
other for the repair and maintenance of railway-artil- 
lery, and still another for training men in the repair 



256 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

of optical and precision instruments. It is sufficient 
for an infantryman to know how to use a pistol, a rifle, 
and a machine-gun, but the men who wear on their 
collars the insignia of the Ordnance Department have 
to know not only how to operate those weapons, and 
how to give instruction in their operation to others, 
but they have to be familiar with every detail of their 
manufacture and repair. 

By far the most fascinating feature of Ordnance 
activities in America is the great proving-ground at 
Aberdeen, Maryland, thirty miles from Baltimore, on 
the shores of Chesapeake Bay. On this remote and 
jealously guarded reservation is tested every weapon 
and device, with the exception of small arms, produced 
by the Ordnance Department. During the height of 
our war preparations, more shots were fired here in a 
single day than were fired at the old proving-grounds 
at Sandy Hook in a year. A far greater quantity of 
explosive was expended daily than was used in many 
of the important battles of the Civil War. Here can 
be seen in action every type of American artillery from 
the vicious, hard-hitting little 37-mm. infantry can- 
non to the camouflaged monsters on railway-mounts, 
streaked like zebras and spotted like giraffes, which 
can drop a ton of explosive on a given target thirty 
miles away. Giant tanks, looking for all the world 
like some strange species of prehistoric monster, smash 
their way through patches of woodland or take 
twelve-foot trenches in their stride; field-guns of all 
caHbres, camouflaged and tractor-mounted, go rock- 
ing and reeHng across the broken fields; airplanes, 
circling in the blue, drop their half-ton bombs upon 



ORDNANCE 257 

the targets marked out on the fields below; showers 
of shrapnel from the antiaircraft guns burst about 
the target parachutes in suddenly unfolding blossoms 
of white and scarlet. In the recovery-fields hundreds 
of men are at work with pick and shovel retrieving 
the fragments from the shell-bursts in order that they 
may be studied by the experts in the laboratories. 
(In order to facilitate this extremely important work, 
there has recently been built a huge concrete reservoir, 
known as a "recovery- tank," into which the shell 
are fired, the fragments being recovered by means of 
giant magnets.) In the powder-bag department one 
can see storerooms filled to the ceiling with rolls of 
the heavy silk used for making the bags in which the 
propelling charges are contained; in adjoining rooms— 
"sweat-shops" they are jokingly called — scores of en- 
listed men, trained in the clothing-shops of New York's 
East Side, cut and stitch the silk into cylindrical sacks 
in sizes to fit the various calibres of guns, and some 
distance away, in small, isolated buildings, other men 
fill the sacks with greenish-yellow granules which look 
like mildewed macaroni, but which is really smokeless 
powder. Over ten thousand miles of this silk was 
required for our war programme. And it had to be 
the finest quality of silk, for no other material could 
be depended upon not to leave smouldering fragments 
in the barrel after its discharge, which would mean a 
burst gun and death to the crew when the next charge 
was inserted. Everything considered, one can get 
more thrills and see more things of interest at Aber- 
deen than at any place I know. 

When time has given it the justice of perspective, 



2 58 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

the war-effort of Army Ordnance will be recognized 
as the greatest industrial achievement in the history of 
mankind. The more one learns of it the more it stag- 
gers the imagination. In nineteen months the Ord- 
nance Department effected the most complete mobili- 
zation of science and industry the world has ever seen; 
it produced munitions of certain classes in unprece- 
dented quantities; it developed and supplied material 
of such superior design and workmanship as to win 
the praise of our allies and the grudging admiration of 
our enemies; it designed, manufactured, and sent over- 
seas the best service rifle, the best automatic rifle, the 
best pistol, the best machine-gun, the best field-gun, 
the best railway-artillery, the best tractor, and the 
best motor- truck possessed by any army in the world, 
and it stood ready, when the Armistice was signed, to 
turn loose on Europe such an avalanche of munitions 
as the world had never dreamed of. The American 
people seem to have completely overlooked the fact 
that we had in full swing, after we had been at war less 
than forty weeks, a mightier munitions programme 
than Germany could attempt after preparations which 
took forty years. But, though the American people 
did not realize the stupendous magnitude of their own 
effort, the Germans did. It was the news of the pro- 
gramme adopted by Army Ordnance, and the realiza- 
tion that it was going through, which, more than any 
single factor, perhaps, convinced Germany of the utter 
futihty of further resistance. The Ordnance Depart- 
ment, like the biblical prophet, was not without honor 
save in its own country. 



VI 

FIGHTERS OF THE SKY 

AT about the time that the German War Lord, re- 
./j^ splendent in the eagle-crowned helmet and silver 
cuirass of the Guard Cuirassiers, was haranguing in 
sonorous phrases the punitive expedition which was 
about to depart for China, two yoimg mechanics in 
greasy overalls were at work in an obscure machine- 
shop in an Ohio city on a strange invention which was 
destined to prove a far more potent weapon than the 
Kaiser's boasted "shining sword." Now it is certain 
that at this period the All Highest had never heard of 
these young mechanics, and though they, of course, had 
heard of him, I imagine that to the accounts of his 
spectacular doings which appeared almost daily in the 
newspapers they paid about as much attention as they 
did to the gaudy lithographs on the local bill-boards 
which heralded the annual visit of the circus. Yet, 
could William of Hohenzollem have looked a dozen 
years into the future, he would have seen that these 
two silent, earnest, unassuming brothers from the 
Middle Western town were destined to have a pro- 
founder effect on the future of the great empire which 
he ruled, and, indeed, on the history of the world, than 
he and all the princes, soldiers, and statesmen who sur- 
rounded him. 

Notwithstanding the jibes and forebodings of the 
professional critics, the ponderous sarcasms of senators 
and congressmen, and the sensational stories of failure 

259 



26o THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

which have appeared in the press, there are few more 
brilliant chapters in our national history than the 
story of the airplane. Do you realize, I wonder, that 
the airplane is the development of barely a decade? 
Had a life-insurance company, ten years ago, learned 
that one of its policy-holders was planning to take a 
ride in a "flying-machine," it would promptly have 
cancelled his policy. Yet to-day planes carrying the 
air-post between the cities of the Eastern seaboard 
go booming down the air-lanes as regularly as express- 
trains and without attracting much more attention. 

The story of the airplane, so far as its relation to 
the American Army is concerned, begins on the little 
flying-field of Fort Myer, on the Virginia side of the 
Potomac, opposite Washington. In the late winter 
of 1907 the Signal Corps had issued an advertisement 
and specifications for a heavier-than-air flying-machine, 
the chief requirement being that it must remain in the 
air for an hour without landing. Most of us will remem- 
ber the world-wide interest which was aroused by this 
promised realization of the dream of the ages. Dur- 
ing the trials the eyes of the world were centred on the 
parade-ground at Fort Myer. The President and the 
members of his cabinet were in frequent attendance and 
even Congress adjourned when it was announced that a 
flight would take place. The story of how the strange 
contrivance, looking like a combination of a box-kite, 
a baby-carriage, and a windmill, which had been 
brought on from Dayton by the two sober-faced 
brothers, was trundled out onto the field; how, after 
skimming along the ground, it rose into the air as 



FIGHTERS OF THE SKY 261 

gracefully as a swallow, and how, after fulfilling every 
condition imposed by the War Department, the first 
machine was purchased by the government, needs no 
elaboration here. The most amazing feature of the 
affair, barring only the performance of the airplane 
itself, was the fact that during the eight years following 
the demonstration at Fort Myer the entire appropria- 
tions hy the government for military aeronautics amounted 
to less than a million dollars. Think of it, my friends ! 
With the secret of aerial navigation in our hands — 
a secret which had been sought for by scientists all 
down the ages — Congress devoted less money to its 
development during the first eight years than it spent 
on many a post-office or government building. But 
the astounding apathy which characterized our attitude 
toward this epoch-making invention did not extend 
to the great European nations. They, always seeking 
to obtain military superiority, instantly recognized the 
significance and the potentialities of those early flights 
at Fort Myer. France, in particular, during the next 
few years making marked advances in aircraft design 
and construction. Thus it came about that when the 
war-cloud burst over Europe in the summer of 19 14 the 
United States, where the airplane had its birth and 
where it had first demonstrated its practicability, pos- 
sessed only a few decrepit and almost obsolete training- 
machines, while our fliers could almost have been num- 
bered on the fingers of one's two hands. Whose was 
the fault for this deplorable and inexcusable condition ? 
A certain amount of blame undeniably attaches to the 
army, for in those days many of our higher officers 



262 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

were graduates of the old Indian-fighting school, who 
regarded with doubt and scepticism the claim that these 
new-fangled flying-machines could have any real mili- 
tary value. I think, however, that the real cause of the 
neglect in developing the airplane could have been 
found in the building with the great white dome 
which stands at the far end of Pennsylvania Avenue. 

As a direct consequence of our systematic dis- 
couragement of airplane development, when we en- 
tered the war there was no such thing as an aviation 
industry .in the United States and the number of aero- 
nautical engineers and designers was so small as to 
be practically negligible. In this respect the problem 
of developing an air-fleet was imique. The United 
States had built ships before, it had manufactured 
cannon, rifles, ammunition, it had fed and clothed and 
housed armies, and it had at its command thousands 
of men qualified to do these things and do them well, 
but, barring a handful of experts in Dayton and Buffalo, 
there was no one in this country with experience in the 
designing or building of either training or fighting 
planes. In short, the government was faced with the 
problem not merely of developing a new industry, but 
of creating it. 

In April, 191 7, there were being built in the United 
States only four makes of aircraft engines that were suf- 
ficiently developed to be of any military value, and 
even these were useful only for primary training. We 
had no engines suited for service on the battle-front, or, 
indeed, even for the advanced training of pilots. 



FIGHTERS OF THE SKY 263 

Though the largest engine manufactured in the United 
States at this time developed about 220 horse-power, 
it had not measured up to the exacting requirements 
of combat. The other American-built engines ranged 
from 90 to 135 horse-power. It being evident, there- 
fore, that the existing American engines could be used 
only for purposes of preliminary instruction, it was 
accordingly decided that their further manufacture 
should be limited to the training requirements. As a 
result of this decision, by far the greater part of the 
primary training of pilots has been conducted with the 
Curtis 90 horse-power engine, a quantity production of 
which was obtained early in the war, this engine being 
particularly valuable owing to the very satisfactory 
training-plane which had been designed around it. 
Considerable use was also made of the Hall-Scott 100 
horse-power engine until the Curtiss motor could be 
manufactured in sufficient numbers to meet all demands 
for primary training. Two European engines, the 
Gnome 100 horse-power and the Hispano-Suiza 150 
horse-power, were also being put into production in 
the United States at this time. These engines repre- 
sented the highest product of European design and en- 
gineering skill, and were in a perfected and standardized 
state, at least according to European ideas, when their 
manufacture was undertaken in this country. But the 
changes involved in adapting them to manufacture by 
American methods required so much time, and the 
advances made in aeronautical engineering were so 
rapid, that before they could be produced in sufficient 
numbers they were almost obsolete for service on the 



264 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

front. These two engines were, however, of unques- 
tioned value for advanced training purposes, the His- 
pano-Suiza in particular playing an important part in 
this work. Later another European engine, the 80 
horse-power Rhone, was also put into production. 

One of the serious mistakes into which the Allies 
had fallen at the time the United States entered the war 
was the development of such a multiplicity of types of 
engines and planes that it was impossible to have a large 
number of any one of them. Indeed, by the spring of 
191 7, there were almost as many types of planes skim- 
ming over the Western Front as there were types of mo- 
tor-cars skimming over American roads. As a direct 
consequence of this condition, the trained personnel 
had grown to such proportions that it was estimated 
that from thirty to fifty men were required on the 
ground to keep each plane in the air. It was obvious, 
therefore, that unless this large number of trained at- 
tendants could be materially reduced, it would be 
hopeless to expect to put thousands of fighting planes 
into the air within a reasonable time, for, on this basis, 
1,000 planes would require from 30,000 to 50,000 men 
to take care of them. It was realized, moreover, that 
copies of foreign designs could not be made available 
in time to answer the insistent demand that America 
should put on the front an air force of overwhelming 
proportions. 

Although, immediately upon the declaration of 
war, an aircraft commission had been sent to Europe 
for the purpose of gathering first-hand information, 



FIGHTERS OF THE SKY 265 

public sentiment would not have permitted the govern- 
ment to sit idly by and wait with folded hands for this 
commission to make its report. What the country 
demanded was action with a capital A. Now it is not 
generally known, perhaps, that, instead of engines being 
designed for certain types of aircraft, the most success- 
ful airplanes are designed around specific engines. 
And, as the development of the engine requires the 
greatest expenditure of effort and time, some one sug- 
gested that, instead of waiting for the members of the 
commission to come home and tell about the European 
engines they had seen, to manufacture which under 
American conditions might well prove impracticable, 
an all-American engine, combining the best features 
of the various European types but particularly adapted 
for manufacture under domestic conditions, be de- 
signed by the best engineering talent in the country 
and immediately placed in production. At a meeting 
of representatives of the Signal Corps — which then 
had charge of military aeronautics — and the Aircraft 
Production Board it was decided to put this suggestion 
into immediate execution, at the same time purchasing 
in Europe whatever equipment might be available in 
order to tide over the period while the all-American 
engine was being put into production. 

At noon on May 29, Lieutenant-Colonel J. G. Vin- 
cent and Lieutenant-Colonel E. J. Hall, two of the 
most brilliant automotive engineers in America, shut 
themselves in a room of the New Willard Hotel in 
Washington. When they left that room again on the 
afternoon of the 31st, though haggard from lack of 



266 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

sleep, they had in their hands the completed assembly 
drawings ctf an entirely new airplane engine. Thus 
was bom the famous Liberty engine, about which 
hundreds of speeches have been made and thousands 
of columns have been written in scepticism, in criticism, 
and in praise. As the result of the enthusiastic co- 
operation of some ten manufacturers, each of whom 
produced those parts for which his factory was best 
fitted, the first Liberty, an 8-cylinder, was built in 
thirty days. The first 12-cylinder engine completed 
its official endurance test eighty-two days from the 
time the order for samples was given, the unqualified 
success of this test removing the Liberty from the realm 
of experimentation to that of established reputation. 
In just one year from the day that Lieutenant-Colonels 
Hall and Vincent pushed the thumb-tacks into their 
drawing-boards in the hotel room, 1,100 Liberty 
"twelves" were produced — a remarkable illustration 
of the ability and ingenuity of American engineers and 
the energy and resourcefulness of American manu- 
facturers. Thanks to the energetic co-operation of 
many manufacturers, more than 14,000 Liberty engines 
had been completed when the Armistice was signed. 
There are few finer passages in the history of America's 
participation in the war than the story of how our manu- 
facturers put aside their private interests and their com- 
mercial rivalries and threw themselves and their or- 
ganizations, heart and soul, into the work of building 
an airplane that would make America mistress of the 
skies. 

When the signing of the Armistice brought our 



FIGHTERS OF THE SKY 267 

efforts to an abrupt conclusion, there had been devel- 
oped, tested, and adopted by the army four types of 
airplanes, production of which would have started early 
in 1919. They were the Lepere, or L. U. S. A. C. H, 
a two-seated fighting-plane equipped with a Liberty 
engine; the U. S. De Haviland 9- A, a day-bombing 
and reconnaissance plane also fitted with the Liberty 
engine; the huge Martin bomber, with a gross weight of 
nearly 5 tons, driven by two Liberty engines; and the 
Loening, a two-seated combat plane fitted with the 
300 horse-power Hispano-Suiza engine. 

A striking illustration of the new problems and 
extraordinary ramifications incident to this great new 
industry which so suddenly came into existence in the 
United States is the fact that it was found necessary to 
despatch an agricultural expert post-haste to India to 
purchase enormous quantities of castor-beans, as it 
was at first believed that castor-oil was the only satis- 
factory lubricant for these new types of high-speed, 
high-power engines. India's stock of castor-beans be- 
ing quickly exhausted by the immensity of our de- 
mands, more than 100,000 acres of the bean were 
planted in the United States. Meanwhile, research 
work with mineral oils was carried on intensively, a 
lubricant eventually being developed which proved 
satisfactory in practically every airplane engine except 
the rotary type, for which castor-oil is still preferred. 

But the aircraft problem was by no means solved 
with the development and production of the Liberty 
engine. Far from it. To build airplanes requires 
wood; the best timber in the world is none too good; 



268 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

and of suitable timber there was a comparatively 
limited supply. The best wood known for airplane 
construction is the Sitka spruce, which combines the 
required qualities of strength, resiliency, and lightness. 
This spruce grows mostly in the Pacific Northwest, 
along the tide-lands of Washington and Oregon, at a 
low elevation. But not all the planes were built of 
spruce, fir, as it grows in the Northwest, being largely 
used for the heavier wing-beams. Port Orford cedar 
was eagerly utilized whenever it could be obtained. It 
is of somewhat smaller growth than spruce or fir, but 
a straighter-grained wood, harder and more dense 
than either of the others. Of this splendid wood there 
is, however, only a comparatively small quantity, 
2,000,000,000 feet, perhaps, anywhere in the world, 
mostly near Coos Bay, on the coast of Oregon. Being 
less affected by water than any of the other woods, it 
was reserved for use in seaplanes. The government 
commandeered the entire supply of Port Orford cedar 
for aircraft production, but released it upon the signing 
of the armistice. 

There is plenty of suitable airplane timber — spruce, 
cedar, and fir — in the Far Nor'west — ^miles and miles 
and miles of it. The mountain-slopes are as solid a 
black with the evergreens as though a giant had painted 
them with soot. "Massed in their black battalions 
stand the bleak, barbarian pines." Foolish men have 
tried to destroy these forests. Twenty years ago a 
colony of Poles settled amid the virgin forests of the 
Olympic Peninsula — a portion of the United States 
which to this day remains virtually unexplored. 



FIGHTERS OF THE SKY 269 

Timber was not worth a dollar a million feet then. 
On the chance that the ground might be tilled if the 
timber could be cleared off, the settlers started a fire 
that burned over ten square miles and destroyed 
timber which, at prevailing prices, would be worth 
close to half a million dollars. The great area of 
blackened waste which remains is still known as 
"The Polander Burn." 

Now spruce, curiously enough, had not been con- 
sidered a valuable wood for the ordinary lumber trade; 
the lumbermen held it a doubtful asset that was hardly 
worth the cutting. As a result of this condition, the 
commercial supply was neither large enough nor well 
enough selected and prepared to meet our aircraft 
requirements when the declaration of war suddenly 
made it one of the most desired and most valuable 
woods in existence. Thus it came about that, the 
lumbermen being unable to supply the demand, the 
army had to go instantly into the business of produc- 
ing this wood in theretofore undreamed-of quantities. 
The work of getting out the spruce fell, rather oddly, to 
the men who had been among the first to volunteer 
for extrahazardous service in France. Before the war, 
when airplanes were looked on merely as toys of the 
rich, the supervision of military aeronautics was as- 
signed to the Signal Corps, on the assumption that if 
flying had any part in warfare it would probably be 
that of signalling, for which reason, and the more potent 
one that no other branch of the service knew what to 
do with it, it had to be wished on some one. And of 
all the branches of the army, possibly none save the 



2 70 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

Flying Section of the Signal Corps — as the Air Service 
was then known — had a more adventurous and devil- 
may-care personnel. The Signal Corps made its 
original appeal to the men who wanted to get out and 
do things: to be in front, to wave the little red-and- 
white flags under shell-fire, to sound the long yell, to 
see the enemy first, to be the eyes and ears and nerves 
of the whole army. But, as I have already explained, 
the army had to have the spruce in order to carry out 
its aviation programme, and aviation was under the 
Signal Corps, and it was from the Signal Corps, there- 
fore, that the men were drawn to go out to the North- 
west and get the spruce. Thus it came about that the 
boys who enlisted at the very beginning in order that 
they might have the danger and excitement of laying 
the field telegraphs and telephones, of dashing madly 
along shell-swept roads on roaring motorcycles, of wig- 
wagging and semaphoring word of the enemy's move- 
ments from in front of the armies, were shipped west- 
ward instead of eastward, were given axes instead of 
Enfields and peaveys instead of pistols, and fought 
their share of the war in the gloomy depths of the pri- 
meval forest, or on the logging railroads and in the 
sawmills which they built in bitter cold and driving 
rain. 

Labor conditions were undeniably bad in the 
Northwest at the beginning of the war. There is an old 
proverb that "A farm lease is a conspiracy on the part 
of the tenant and the absentee landlord to rob the land." 
Lumbering was almost as bad. The owners were avari- 
cious and arrogant, the men stubborn and defiant. The 



FIGHTERS OF THE SKY 271 

owners would not make camp improvements because 
"the men would not stay on the job," and the men 
would not stay because "the owners didn't make things 
decent." And, to make things worse, the paid German 
propaganda was rampant, unchecked in the woods, for 
the Wilhelmstrasse fully realized how vital it was to 
cripple the American air programme. Germany knew 
better than we did the war possibilities of the Pacific 
Northwest. She couldn't buy spruce there for her 
planes, but she could mobilize her spies and trouble- 
makers and hinder the production for and the delivery 
of spruce to the United States and her allies. And she 
did her worst. Some day there will be told the story, 
the "inside" story, of the campaign waged in the Great 
Woods by the secret forces of Germany — a campaign 
consisting of strikes, I. W. W. demonstrations, forest- 
fires, railway wrecks, dynamited bridges, damaged 
machinery, infernal machines, shootings, systematic 
intimidation, and all the other deviltries of a vicious 
and unscrupulous enemy. The spies and secret agents 
which Germany planted in the forests of the Northwest 
formed a part of the vast army of which the Kaiser 
boasted to Ambassador Gerard. But the Hun made a 
miscalculation. There were not enough spies; there 
were too many Americans. 

The War Department has rarely shown greater 
wisdom than when it gave a colonel's commission to 
Brice P. Disque, an ex-captain of Regulars who had left 
the army to accept the wardenship of the Michigan 
State Prison, and put him in charge of spruce produc- 
tion. Captain Disque had his blanket-roll packed and 



272 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

aboard ship for service in France when he was called 
to Washington, just as the transport was setting sail, 
and ordered to go to the Northwest and investigate 
lumbering conditions. His report showed that the 
right man had been found to direct the Titanic job of 
getting out the spruce; he was commissioned a colonel 
and later a brigadier-general, and the story of the spruce 
production tells the rest. 

To the tact and vision of General Disque is due the 
creation of that remarkable organization known as the 
Loyal Legion of Loggers and Lumbermen, an associa- 
tion conceived to bring capital and labor together in one 
mighty machine driven solely by patriotism. Under 
the inspiration thus provided, both sides agreed to sub- 
mit their differences to the United States Army, as 
represented in the person of General Disque, as final 
arbiter. The eight-hour day was agreed to; camp 
sanitation and better living conditions of every kind 
were demanded; a uniformly liberal wage-scale for all 
classes of labor was adopted; a standard mess was ar- 
ranged to check the inordinate waste of food in the 
lumber-camps; the owners were given profitable prices 
for their output under the new conditions, and the 
small men were assured of receiving a square deal from 
their powerful corporate rivals. Some of these ques- 
tions were settled through regular military channels, 
but most of them through the medium of the L. L. L. L. 
Once a matter could be shown to be reasonable and fair 
to every one concerned, it was officially adopted, as by 
a majority vote, and business as well as patriotic rea- 
sons demanded that every one should cheerfully ac- 



FIGHTERS OF THE SKY 273 

quiesce in the decision. The Loyal Legion works — 
for it has been made permanent — through its local 
assemblies; any local disagreement is taken to the dis- 
trict council — which is formed from local representa- 
tives of both employer and employees, there being eight 
of these district councils in the Coast Division and 
four in the Inland Empire. Any question which cannot 
be settled by a district council goes to the Central Coun- 
cil, composed of one employer and one employee from 
each district; while General Disque, as the head of 
the Legion, has been the final arbitrator in such ques- 
tions as the Central Council could not settle. Since 
this plan was definjitely adopted, however, so strong a 
spirit of patriotic fairness has been developed on both 
sides that nothing has gone to him for settlement or 
revision. Nothing could more strongly emphasize the 
success of the Legion, which now has a membership of 
nearly 130,000, than the fact that at a mass convention, 
held shortly after the signing of the Armistice, at which 
more than 900 local councils were represented, it was 
voted almost unanimously to perpetuate the organiza- 
tion, to continue the publication of its official bulletin, 
and to invite General Disque to continue as the Legion's 
head. Were the people of the Pacific Northwest to 
receive no other reward for their sacrifices in the war, 
they have reason to feel amply repaid by the creation 
of the Loyal Legion and the resultant ending of the 
long-standing feud between capital and labor, the ex- 
pulsion of the I. W. W.'s and similar discordant and 
dangerous elements, the betterment of working and 
Hving conditions for the lumbermen, and the com- 



274 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

mencement of an era of peace and prosperity in the 
Great Woods. 



Unless you have been in the Northwest during the 
rainy season you can have no adequate conception of 
the difficulties under which the spruce squadrons la- 
bored. The coastal districts of Oregon and Washing- 
ton have one of the heaviest rainfalls recorded anywhere 
on earth. Unkind people, have said of the Pacific 
Northwest that it has but two seasons — the rainy sea- 
son and August. But that is an exaggeration. The 
local newspapers alternately boast of and apologize 
for the reputed i8o inches, or 15 feet, of annual pre- 
cipitation. With that as a basis for one's calculations, 
the old man who sold the town site of Simescarey, the 
terminus of the spruce road which the government 
has built into the Olympic Peninsula, has had 450 feet 
of water descend upon his head — for the inhabitants of 
that region scorn umbrellas — in the thirty years that 
he has resided there. After a winter spent in the 
Northwest — and having passed one there, I know 
whereof I speak — one might easily believe that the 
sentry at an Oregon spruce-camp was not joking when 
he came in to the commanding officer to report the 
damages done by the rain. 

" Sir," he apologized, " I don't like to be a pessimist, 
but things ain't going right to-day. Most of the fish 
in the lake are dead since last night's rain. The lake 
raised so fast that some of 'em got beyond their depth 
and was just naturally drowned; the rest couldn't 
swim up fast enough, and bein' surface fish and not 



FIGHTERS OF THE SKY 275 

used to much depth, their bladders busted and there 
ain't a fit fish left in the whole bunch. Every duck 
but one is dead, too; the rain beat their heads into a 
mush — all but the one that got caught in a steel trap 
set for a muskrat and that saved his life — he stayed 
under water where it was dry. Believe me, sir, that was 
the wettest rain last night I ever see." 

Because, as I have already explained, the lumber- 
men did not cbnsider spruce a profitable wood to 
handle, few of the spruce forests had been penetrated 
by railroads. So Disque and his Legionaries set out 
to build railways themselves — 13 lines with more than 
300 miles of trackage. The forests tapped by these 
new lines and their branches have, it is estimated, an 
ultimate production of 33,000,000,000 feet of lumber, 
a quantity almost beyond the comprehension of the 
human brain. In order to visualize it, it must be 
translated into commonplace, every-day terms. Let 
us assume that it requires 20,000 feet of lumber to 
build an average 5 or 6 room house. Taking this as 
a basis, the railways built by Disque and his spruce 
squadrons have brought within the reach of commerce 
enough timber to build almost 2,000,000 of these com- 
fortable American homes, with sufficient waste wood to 
keep them heated for a generation. When the war 
ended, 1 74,000,000 feet of aircraft lumber had been cut 
and shipped — enough to build dwellings for the in- 
habitants of a good-sized city. 

The government planned to have all the airplane 
stock from the Northwest cut at the one great cut-up 



276 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

plant at Vancouver, near Portland. This huge mill, 
the largest in the world, was built by the army in forty- 
five days and has handled more than a million and a half 
feet of lumber in twenty-four hours. But with the 
extension of the airplane programme, whereby the 
Spruce Division was called upon to furnish stock for all 
the Allies, more capacity was required and three 
other great plants of almost equal size were planned, 
one being ready for opening, one almost completed, 
and one projected when the Armistice was signed. 
These four huge mills would, it is estimated, have 
furnished the United States and her allies with close 
to 100,000,000 feet of airplane lumber a month. 

The silent, peaceful forests of the Northwest 
seemed separated from the war by a milHon miles, 
a score of generations. But when the word was 
flashed from Washington to Disque to '' Go ahead," the 
primeval silence of the woods was suddenly shattered 
by a million bellowing echoes of battle. The war 
had come to America. Almost overnight the battle- 
front moved 6,000 miles westward — from the forests 
of the Argonne to the forests of Oregon. The trucks 
were brought in — endless caravans of grunting, strain- 
ing monsters; the soldiers came, 30,000 in all; the 
loggers, graders, hard-rock men, sawyers, surveyors, 
engineers; the pile-drivers, the donkey-engines, the 
steam-shovels perched on wheels, the train-loads of 
food and tools and powder; the patient, sweating horses 
and the creaking wagons, thousands upon thousands of 
them. The wood roads were black with traffic; they 
fairly smoked with the fierce fight for speed. The 



FIGHTERS OF THE SKY 277 

highways were dust in the early fall, where the 5 or 15 
ton loads ground the roads to powder. Then the wet 
weather came — fogs, mists, drizzles, showers, floods — 
the rainy season that grows the incomparable forests of 
the Northwest. 

They splashed through it all, soldiers and Legion- 
aries alike; they waded, they swam, they shivered and 
swore, and beat their hands over the brush fires — but 
the stream of supplies never stopped nor checked. The 
railway gangs, following close on the heels of the axe- 
men, laid their twin lines of steel through the dripping 
forest faster than Kitchener laid down his desert rail- 
way to Khartoum, the locomotives crawling one mile, 
two miles, deeper into the wilderness each night. Night 
and day the forest trails were busy. Shuttling back 
and forth, loaded both ways with materials and men, 
teams and trucks and trains struggled for speed. Head- 
lights, lanterns, shouted warnings, guided the night 
traffic along the sombre, shut-in ways. Clankings, 
clatterings, gasoline coughings, the honk of horns and 
the hoot of locomotives filled the air. The silent forest 
became a bedlam of sound, of action. 

The spruce ! The fir ! The wings of victory ! 
Berlin heard it, saw it first. The splitting blasts that 
showered the forest lakes with stones, the shouting, 
heaving din of the construction-camps, the crash of 
the trees as they fell before the axe and saw of the 
woodsmen, the whine of the cables through the sheaves 
as the huge logs were snaked into position for loading, 
the rumble and roar of the heavy-laden log-trains, the 
shriek of the giant saws in the mills — all these sounds 



278 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

fell upon the listening ears at German Great Head- 
quarters with a growing menace, as ominous as the 
tattoo of the machine-guns, as the thunderous blast of 
the great Allied cannon, as the victorious cheers of the 
charging Yanks. They meant that the spruce was 
coming! The planes were coming! A few months 
more and the boasted Hindenburg Line would be a joke. 
The Germans knew that they could not build trenches 
in the clouds. That was the real reason why they 
were attacked by yellow fever in the fall of 1918. 

The engines and the planes themselves being in 
production, the next problem to be solved by the War 
Department was to provide our new aerial navy with 
armament in the form of machine-guns. Fighting in 
the air, it should be remembered, is entirely a develop- 
ment of the Great War, the adaptation of machine-guns 
for airplane use having practically all taken place since 
19 14. Though the records show that a machine-gun 
was successfully fired from an airplane in this country 
in 19 12, and though the French had a few heavy planes 
fitted with mitrailleuses at the outbreak of the war, it 
was not until 191 5 that machine-guns were carried by 
planes on active service. Prior to that time aviators 
depended on service and automatic rifles, pistols, shot- 
guns shooting large shot held together by wires — minia- 
ture editions of the chain-shot used by early sea- 
fighters — and also carried darts and grenades to drop 
on the enemy. As a matter of fact, in one of the first 
aerial combats of the war, which took place on the 
Eastern Front between a Russian aviator and an 



FIGHTERS OF THE SKY 279 

Austrian, weapons were not used at all. The Russian 
determined to wreck his adversary and, in pursuance of 
this plan, so manoeuvred his plane that the tips of his 
wings were just beneath the wings of the Austrian. 
He then suddenly elevated that end of his plane, 
hoping to upset the Austrian, but the result was that 
both machines collided and fell to the ground. Major 
Eric T. Bradley, formerly in the British Army but now 
an officer of the American Air Service, tells of having 
flown over the lines in 191 5 armed with a twelve-gauge 
double-barrel shotgun loaded with buckshot tied to- 
gether with wire, which swished through the air like 
the lash of a whip and occasionally hit something — 
usually by chance. 

The development of methods for controlling 
machine-guns so that they can be fired through the 
area traversed by the propeller has had a vast effect 
on aerial combat, and an understanding of the problems 
involved is necessary in order to appreciate the difficul- 
ties which had to be overcome. The various devices 
which have been developed for controlling the fire of 
a machine-gun so as to cause the bullets to miss the 
blades of the propeller are commonly known as syn- 
chronizing or interrupter gears. These terms are, how- 
ever, somewhat inaccurate, as it is only occasionally 
that the speed of the propeller is equal to the rate of fire 
of the gun, which is the condition of synchronization; 
moreover, the gun is not interrupted, but is caused to 
fire at the proper moment so that the bullet will miss 
the propeller-blade. "Gun control" would be a more 
descriptive name for the device. 



28o THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

Tractor airplanes — those which have the engine 
and propeller in front — were early found to be better 
suited to combat work than planes of the "pusher" 
type, which have the propeller behind, because they 
possess greater manoeuvring powers and are better able 
to defend themselves. With these planes was de- 
veloped the fixed aircraft machine-gun. This gun is 
fixed rigidly to the plane, pointing straight ahead, 
parallel to the line of flight. The first fixed guns were 
mounted on the upper plane so as to shoot over the arc 
described by the propeller, but these were not satis- 
factory owing to the difficulty in reloading the gim. 
To overcome this very obvious disadvantage the gun 
was lowered, which brought its line of fire inside the 
arc described by the propeller blades. Thus arose the 
difficulty caused by shooting into the propeller, to solve 
which countless experiments were made and numerous 
expedients tried. At first the blades were armored 
at the points where the bullets would strike, with steel 
of a shape calculated to cause the bullets to glance off, 
but this system was never satisfactory. Then the ex- 
periment was tried of wrapping the propeller with 
linen to keep it from splintering, as it was found that 
several bullets could be fired through a propeller thus 
treated without causing it to break. Throughout the 
summer of 191 5 all of the Nieuport fighting-planes used 
by the French were fitted with fixed guns shooting 
through the propeller — if a bullet hit the propeller it 
either went through it or it wrecked it. 

There is considerable disagreement as to who in- 
vented the device for controlling the fire of a machine- 



FIGHTERS OF THE SKY 281 

gun so as not to strike the blade of the propeller, but 
it is admitted that the Germans were the first to make 
any extensive use of it, introducing it on the Fokker 
monoplanes, which caused so much damage on the 
Western Front in 191 5. Shortly thereafter the Allies 
adopted similar devices. When the United States en- 
tered the war neither the Ordnance Department nor 
the Aviation Section of the Signal Corps had had any 
experience worthy of the name with aircraft guns. 
And if they were ill-informed on the subject of guns, 
they were appallingly ignorant on the subject of gun 
controls. A few months of study and experiments 
served to materially increase the War Department's 
knowledge along these lines, however, and by the time 
the planes were ready to receive the guns we had 
adopted a device known as the Constantinisco control. 
I should explain, perhaps, that there are two distinct 
types of gun control, both of which were in use when 
hostilities ceased. One is hydraulic, the other me- 
chanical. The operation of both types is somewhat 
similar. In each case a cam mounted on the shaft of 
the engine actuates a plunger which in turn operates 
the rest of the mechanism. In the mechanical gun 
control the impulse of the cam is transmitted to the 
gun through a series of rods, causing the gun to fire at 
the exact moment when there is no propeller-blade in 
front of the muzzle. In the hydraulic type the impulse 
of the cam is transmitted to the gun through a system 
of copper tubes containing oil under high pressure. 
The hydraulic control, known as the Constantinisco, 
was adopted for use on American planes, particularly 



282 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

the De Haviland 4, which carries two fixed Marlins, 
each firing at the rate of 650 shots a minute. By em- 
ploying the maximum rate of fire, 1,300 shots could be 
fired in a minute through the blades of the propeller, 
which would make 1,600 revolutions in the same space 
of time — without the blades being struck by a single 
bullet. 

A machine-gun intended for aerial use must be ab- 
solutely reliable in operation. If a gun jams on the 
ground there is usually time to overhaul it or to re- 
place it. Not so in the air. There a jam or a mal- 
function is almost certain to prove disastrous, if not 
fatal, to the gunner, who is left completely at the mercy 
of his adversary. An aircraft gun must also function 
properly in any position in which it is likely to be 
placed by the manoeuvres of the plane. Likewise, an 
intensely high rate of fire is essential. For ground- 
work 500 shots per minute is reckoned as sufficient for 
the machine-gun, for a higher rate of fire would only 
result in several bullets hitting the same man. But a 
considerably higher rate of fire — up to 1,000 shots a 
minute, in fact— is demanded of aircraft guns, this 
being necessitated by the great speed at which air- 
planes move. The gunner, remember, can train on 
his target for only a few seconds, sometimes for only 
a fraction of a second, at a time, and it is essential, 
therefore, that he should have at his command the 
greatest possible volume of fire. Do you appreciate 
that, were an airplane flying parallel to, say, a high 
board fence, at a speed of 100 miles an hour, and 
shooting at right angles at that fence with a gun firing 



FIGHTERS OF THE SKY 283 

880 shots a minute, the bullet-marks on the fence would 
be ten feet apart ? 

Single-seater machines carry only fixed guns, 
which are mounted with the barrel parallel to the axis 
of the airplane. These guns, which are synchronized 
so as to shoot through the propeller, are put into action 
by a trigger on the "joy-stick" of the plane and are 
aimed by pointing the entire airplane at the enemy. 
Flexible guns are used only on two-place machines, 
being operated by the observer or gunner. They are 
carried on the Universal mount, which permits of the 
gun being pointed in any direction. All of the flexible 
aircraft guns used by the Allies were based on the prin- 
ciple of the Lewis gun, the invention of a retired Ameri- 
can army officer, Colonel Isaac Lewis. The chief dif- 
ference between the ground and aircraft models is that 
in the latter the cooling radiator is eliminated, as air- 
craft guns are never fired continuously for any length 
of time. 

When the United States entered the war the 
Vickers was the only type of fixed gun in use on either 
English or French planes and was used on all the planes 
which General Pershing bought in France. When the 
Equipment Division of the Signal Corps faced the 
machine-gun situation in September, 191 7, it was 
alarmed to find that the entire production of Vickers 
in the United States had already been contracted for 
to supply the imperative requirements of the infantry. 
There was another gun on the market at this time, 
however — the Marlin — and toward its development 
for aircraft use the officers of the Signal Corps bent 



284 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

all their energies. Though the Marlin was adopted 
in the face of violent opposition, it resulted in provid- 
ing sufficient fixed guns to arm the American planes, 
the wisdom of the action being proved by the fact 
that up to the time of the Armistice no other fixed 
guns were ready for delivery. The Marlin has been 
adapted to all American-built planes which carry 
fixed or synchronized guns, over 37,000 having been 
produced up to December, 191 8. This gun shoots .30- 
calibre ammunition at the rate of 600 to 650 shots a 
minute and is fed from a belt of the disintegrating 
metal-link type. In December, 191 7, the first order 
was placed for Lewis aircraft guns, over 39,000 of 
them being delivered to the American Air Service 
within the following twelvemonth, A notable im- 
provement in the aircraft model of the Lewis gim was 
an increase in the depth of the magazine pan, so that 
each magazine holds 97 cartridges instead of 47 as 
previously. The Browning aircraft machine-gun was 
just coming into production when the war ended. 
This weapon embodies the best features of every 
known machine-gun and would probably have replaced 
all other types in use. It is a belt-fed gun of the 
recoil type — ^both the Marlin and Lewis are gas-op- 
erated — is as near fool-proof as a machine-gun can be 
made, and has the amazing rate of fire of 950 shots a 
minute. Of it the inventor is said to have remarked: 
"If it had four more parts it could play a tune; if it 
had seven more parts it could talk." 

The ammunition for fixed aircraft guns, such as 
the Marlin and Browning, is carried in belts containing 



FIGHTERS OF THE SKY 285 

a maximum of 500 rounds. In the earlier days of the 
war these belts were of woven web, but it was found 
that taking care of them, when empty, in the limited 
space of the fuselage, was always a source of annoy- 
ance and not infrequently a source of danger to the 
aviator. To; remedy this a belt was designed and fur- 
nished to the American Expeditionary Forces which 
consisted of small metallic links held together by the 
cartridges themselves. As the gim fires, the Imks drop 
apart, chutes being provided so that they fall clear of 
the airplane. Another minor though interesting fea- 
ture of aircraft armament is the small electric heater 
which is now provided for the purpose of keeping the 
gun warm and thus preventing the oil from congealing 
in high altitudes. 

Efforts to make the bursts of fire from aircraft 
guns of maximum effectiveness have led to the develop- 
ment of three distinct types of ammunition — tracer, 
armor-piercing, and incendiary. The tracer type of 
ammunition was developed to assist the gunner in cor- 
recting his aim, and is equally useful by night or day, 
as the course of the bullet can be traced by a trail of 
white smoke in the daytime and by a bright spark at 
night. Armor-piercing ammunition has a projectile 
consisting of a hard steel core with a soft nickel casing. 
The object of this ammunition, as its name implies, is 
to pierce any of the metallic parts of an enemy plane, 
particularly the gasoline-tanks or the engine, the soft 
nickel casing acting as a lubricant and preventing the 
steel core from glancing off. Incendiary ammunition 
is loaded with yellow phosphorus. When the cartridge 



286 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

is fired the rifling in the barrel of the machine-gun 
opens a small hole in the case of the projectile, thus 
permitting the phosphorus to come in contact with the 
air, whereupon it immediately ignites and sets fire to 
any inflammable part of a plane which it may hit. It 
is customary to load the belts or pans of aircraft 
machine-guns with these three types of special ammu- 
nition in a certain sequence, depending upon the no- 
tions of the pilot himself. A sequence commonly used 
was, first, the tracer cartridge, which assisted the gun- 
ner in correcting his aim; next, two or three armor- 
piercing cartridges, in the hope that they would pierce 
the enemy's gasoline-tank or damage his engine; and 
then one or two incendiary cartridges, which if the 
gasoline-tank was pierced would ignite the leaking 
gasoline and set fire to the machine. This sequence 
was continued throughout the loading of the belt or 
pan. 

Another branch of sky warfare which was being 
rapidly developed was aerial bombing. Though bombs 
of a sort were used by Italian aviators against the 
Arabs during the Libyan campaign, and by American 
soldiers of fortune serving with the Villista forces in 
northern Mexico, these attempts were so amateurish 
and ineffective as to merit no serious consideration. 
It may be said that the first bombs dropped from an 
aircraft in the history of warfare were those loosed 
from the German Zeppelin which raided Antwerp in 
August, 1 91 4. I speak with a certain personal knowl- 
edge of my subject, for the first bomb dropped on the 
night in question exploded less than a hundred yards 



FIGHTERS OF THE SKY 287 

from the window in which I was sitting, demolishing a 
house and killing three persons. 

Many people seem to be under the impression 
that bomb-dropping is about as simple as dropping a 
brick out of an upper-story window onto the head of a 
man beneath. This is not so. As a matter of fact, it 
is extremely difficult to drop a bomb from an airplane 
so that it will hit a desired target, for, owing to the 
speed at which the plane travels, the bomb when re- 
leased does not drop to the ground vertically, but falls 
in a parabolic curve, something like that described by 
a man who jumps from a street-car when it is in mo- 
tion. For this reason the bomb must be released some 
moments before the airplane is directly over the tar- 
get, the ability of an aviator to determine the exact 
moment to pull his release mechanism being acquired 
only through long experience. Bomb-sights have re- 
cently been perfected, however, which have largely 
eliminated this element of chance. These sights have 
numerical scales mathematically calculated, so that 
when adjusted for height, air-speed as shown by the 
air-speed indicator, and calculated speed of the wind 
with or against the airplane, two sighting points are 
moved into such a position that if the bomb is dropped 
when the desired target comes in line with them, it 
will reach its objective— provided, of course, the avia- 
tor has made his calculations and set his sights cor- 
rectly. All this sounds rather complicated, I know, 
and it is complicated, but if the pilot uses the sight 
correctly his chances of hitting his target are enor- 
mously increased. All bombing planes are fitted with 



288 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

quick-release mechanisms, which hold the bombs firmly 
in a vertical or horizontal position, according to the 
type and size carried. On the smaller bombing planes, 
such as the De Haviland 4, the release mechanisms are 
placed underneath the fuselage or the lower wings, but 
on the large types, such as the Handley-Page, the 
bombs are carried inside the fuselage. By a quick 
jerk of a lever the pilot releases his bomb precisely as 
a hangman, by jerking a lever, drops the trap on which 
the condemned man stands. And the consequences 
are usually much the same in both cases. 

There were three distinct types of bombs — demo- 
lition, fragmentation, and incendiary — in use by the 
American Air Service when the war ended. Ameri- 
can demolition bombs are made in 50, 100, 250, 500, 
and 1,000 pound weights, the 100 and 250 pound sizes 
being used chiefly. These bombs consist of a light 
steel casing filled with T N T or other high explosive 
and a detonator separated from the explosive by a 
safety-pin. When the bomb is released from the air- 
plane the safety-pin is automatically pulled out, per- 
mitting the detonator to slide down into such a position 
that the bomb will explode the instant it strikes the 
ground. These demolition bombs are primarily de- 
signed for use against buildings, fortifications, and 
other heavy structures where a high-explosive charge 
is desired. Had the war continued long enough to 
have permitted of our aviators letting loose a few 
1,000-pound bombs on some of the trans-Rhine strong- 
holds, the Germans would have learned what the San 
Francisco earthquake was like. Fragmentation bombs 




Photograph by Signal Corps, U.S.A. 

BOMBING PRACTICE. 

An illustration of how the enemy's lines of communication can be destroyed by bombs dropped from 

airplanes. 




Photograph by Signal Corps, U. S. A. 

EGGS OF DEATH. 
Attachins dummy bombs to the rack of a bombing plane 







/■ 

/ ^.-^i 








^ 


^ 






^^^^^^^^^^^^B 


i 





PIGEONS HAVE BEEN REI'LAILDLV USED WITH SUCCESS FROM BOTH AIRPLANES 

AND BALLOONS. 




PJiotograph by U. S. Air Seniie. 

THE EYE IN THE SKY; AN AIRPLANE CAMERA IN OPERATION. 

During the offensive in the Argonne the American Photographic Sections made 100,000 
aerophotographs of battle lines in four days. 



FIGHTERS OF THE SKY 289 

are considerably smaller, the size most frequently used 
weighing twenty pounds. They have a thicker case 
than the demolition bombs and are constructed so as 
to explode a few inches above the ground. These 
bombs are for use against troops in trenches or in the 
open and depend upon the scattering of the fragments 
for their effect. Incendiary bombs weigh about fifty 
pounds and contain charges of oil emulsion, thermite, 
and metallic sodium, which bum for several minutes 
with the intense heat of a plumber's blow-lamp. They 
are used against ammunition-depots, storehouses, and 
other structures of inflammable construction, the pur- 
pose of the metallic sodium being to discourage the 
efforts of any one who attempts to put out the fire, as 
it explodes violently when water is poured on it. 

Comparatively few persons realize, I suppose, that 
fireworks almost identical with those we used to set off 
on the Fourth of July in the good old days before the 
safe-and-sane laws went into effect are utilized in 
aerial warfare and form a valuable and often vital 
asset for the aviator. Most of these aerial pyrotech- 
nics resemble in their effects the colored lights and the 
Roman candles of our childhood and are used for sig- 
nalling from the airplane to the ground and vice versa, 
or from one plane to others in the air at the same time. 
For this purpose every active service airplane carries 
one or more signalling pistols, depending upon the 
number of the crew. These rather formidable-appear- 
ing weapons, which look not unlike the big-barrelled 
affairs the pirates were wont to carry in their scarlet 
sashes, are similar to the Very pistols used in the 



290 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

trenches; their ammunition consists of cartridges very 
similar to shotgun shells, but larger, containing stars of 
various colors, like those in Roman candles, and the 
necessary powder charge to eject the stars. Three 
colors, red, green, and white, are furnished, the color 
of the star being indicated on the base of the cartridge, 
which is also serrated in such a manner that the aviator 
can tell the color by touch when flying at night. By 
different combinations of these colors an almost endless 
variety of signals can be conveyed. One of the strang- 
est and most fascinating night sights on the Western 
Front was to see these countless stars, scarlet, yellow, 
emerald, shot from invisible airplanes, drifting across 
the purple velvet of the sky. The stars are clearly 
visible in the daytime and were used for many pur- 
poses, such as indicating the position of enemy troops, 
the presence of hostile aircraft, requests for assistance 
from other planes, and as a means of transmitting 
orders from the leader of a squadron to other machines 
in formation. At night the signalling pistol is of ex- 
ceptional value in aiding the aviator to effect a safe 
landing. When approaching his home-field the pilot 
fires a light of a prearranged color, and if answered by 
a light of a proper color from the ground, he knows 
that the field is clear of obstructions and other machines 
and safe to land on. Pilots have also used their signal- 
ling pistols for firing into their gasoline-tanks and thus 
setting fire to their machines when forced to land in 
enemy territory. There are also a few cases on record 
of the pilot bemg able to hold enemy soldiers at bay 
with his signalling pistol long enough to prevent them 
from extinguishing the fire. 



FIGHTERS OF THE SKY 291 

Night-flying is one of the most hazardous duties 
of the aviator, the chief danger being in the difficulty 
of makmg a safe landing. Night-landing fields are, as 
a rule, well illuminated by flood-lights, but near the 
front this was not always advisable or safe, and, owing 
to the difficulty of judging the distance of the machine 
above the ground in the darkness, accidents were by 
no means uncommon. In order to minimize this dan- 
ger there was developed the "wing-tip flare," which 
consists of a small cylinder of magnesium material in 
a metallic holder, one of which is fitted under each 
lower wing of the plane. The flares are ignited by an 
electric current and are controlled by push-buttons, 
one for each flare, in the pilot's cockpit. In making a 
night-landing, when the pilot judges the plane to be 
but a few feet above the ground, he presses one of the 
buttons. The flare instantly ignites and for about 
fifty seconds bums with a light of approximately 
20,000 candle-power, which, reflected on the ground by 
the under surface of the wing, enables the pilot to 
judge his distance and effect his landing without 
trouble. 

The requirements of night-bombing have led to 
the development of a new and very interesting form of 
pyrotechnic known as the ''airplane flare." This flare, 
which weighs thirty-five pounds, is contained in a 
cylindrical case of sheet-iron about four feet long and 
five inches in diameter. The flare consists of an iUu- 
minating charge, capable of giving 32,000 candle- 
power for approximately ten minutes, which is attached 
to a silk parachute twenty feet in diameter. The 



292 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

cylinder is attached to the airplane by a Hght release 
mechanism similar to those used for holding bombs. 
On the end of the cylinder is a small pinwheel, which, 
revolved by the rush of air as the released cylinder 
hurtles downward, ignites the illuminating charge and 
at the same time detonates a small black-powder 
charge sufficient to eject the flare and its tightly rolled 
parachute from the case. The parachute immediately 
opens and the burning flare descends very slowly, illu- 
minating a large area of territory underneath almost 
as brightly as though it were day. These flares were 
used particularly for night-bombing raids, the pilots 
thus being enabled to illuminate the objectives so that 
they could accurately drop their bombs. On several 
occasions, when raiding airplanes were met by heavy 
fire from the enemy's antiaircraft batteries, it was 
found that the light from these flares was so dazzling 
as to make it impossible for the gunners to take accu- 
rate aim. So wide is the radius illuminated by these 
flares, and so intense their light, that it has been found 
possible by their aid to obtain aero photographs of 
excellent detail even on the darkest nights. I can per- 
sonaUy vouch for the amazing brilliancy of these 
flares, for I saw one dropped by the Germans during 
one of their air-raids on Paris in the summer of 191 8. 
It apparently landed on the Pont Alexandre III or in 
the Seine, yet both banks of the river, the facades of 
the Grand and the Petit Palais, and the Champ Ely- 
sees for several blocks in both directions were almost 
as bright as though illuminated by a midday sun. 
Standing alone in the Cours de la Reine, I had the 



FIGHTERS OF THE SKY 293 

feeling that the Kaiser's eye was on me and that, hav- 
ing discovered me, he intended to drop upon me one 
of his steel visiting-cards. The brilliancy and unex- 
pectedness of the glare reminded me of boyhood days 
in the Thousand Islands, when the captain of the 
Island Wanderer, making his nightly excursions amid 
the clustered, cottage-dotted isles, took keen dehght 
in suddenly turning the beam of his powerful search- 
light upon some affectionate pair love-making on the 
shore. 

It has been said that the airplane is the eye of 
the army, and it is equally true that the camera is the 
eye of the airplane. Nothing more strikingly empha- 
sizes the enormous importance attached to pictures 
taken from the air, showing the progress of the opera- 
tions, than the fact that, during the offensive in the 
Argonne, the American photographic sections made 
one hundred thousand aero photographs of the battle-lines 
in four days. 

As aerial photography was an entirely new mili- 
tary subject at the outbreak of the war in 1914, there 
were no precedents to act as guides, nor was there any 
special apparatus in existence. Consequently, the en- 
tire art of aerial photography was developed and 
brought to its present state of perfection by the Allies 
under the incentive of military necessity and after the 
war had begun. As trench warfare made aerial pho- 
tography not only important but vital to the success 
of any proposed operations, the changes and improve- 
ments in the apparatus employed came with incredible 



294 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

rapidity, practices employed one week becoming obso- 
lete the next. By April, 191 7, the British Air Service 
alone had issued approximately 280,000 prints, and 
this number was equalled, if not surpassed, by the 
French Section Photographique. At the beginning of 
the war it was possible to fly at low altitudes and secure 
reasonably satisfactory pictures with such cameras, 
plates, and lenses as were then available. But as anti- 
aircraft artillery was developed, the planes were forced 
to climb higher to keep out of their range, and owing 
to the necessity for longer-focus lenses, special plates, 
and color filters to overcome the haze existing between 
the camera and the earth, photography at these high 
altitudes became increasingly difficult. 

When the United States entered the war the Brit- 
ish, French, and Italians were using plates exclusively 
and we followed their lead, it not being until some 
months later that we turned to films. At this time the 
British were using 4x5 plates, and cameras equipped 
with lenses of from 8 to 12 inch focus. Instead of 
making contact prints from these negatives, enlarge- 
ments 6}4 X 8>^ were made on glossy paper, it being 
claimed that this process gave greater control in 
printing. Whether the British system really had all 
the advantages claimed for it is open to question, but 
in any event we adopted it and followed it through 
the first nine months of the war. The great masters 
of photography in Rochester were by no means con- 
tent to let another nation set the pace for the United 
States, however, and in January, 1918, a concern in 
that city completed a very remarkable aero camera, 



FIGHTERS OF THE SKY 295 

radically different from anything which had been seen 
in Europe up to that time, which was promptly 
adopted by the War Department. This camera, 
which took an i8-cm. by 24-cm. picture, had a focal 
length of 20 inches, held a roll of film on which 100 
successive exposures could be made, and weighed only 
35 pounds. Its most novel feature was the "vacuum 
back," consisting of a perforated sheet which extended 
across the top of the chamber and over the face of 
which the film passed. A slight air-suction, produced 
by a Venturi tube placed where it would catch the 
rush of air past the plane, served to hold the film 
absolutely flat — for the slightest curvature of its surface 
would play havoc with the perspective of a picture 
taken from a height, say, of 10,000 feet. This ingenious 
instrument was driven by an electric motor which 
changed the film and automatically set the shutter, 
the observer having only to start the machinery going 
and regulate its speed according to the rate of travel 
of the airplane in order to obtain a series of pictures 
forming a continuous photograph of the territory over 
which the machine was passing. 

Another picturesque phase of aerial photography 
of which the public was permitted to know next to noth- 
ing was the so-called "gun camera," the invention of 
Thornton Pickard, of Altringham, England. This 
camera, which was designed for the purpose of training 
aerial gunners, imitated as closely as possible a Marlin 
aircraft machine-gun, and in order to make a picture it 
was necessary for the operator to go through the same 
movements as in firing a Marlin gun. The picture 



296 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

was made through a circular graticule synchronized 
with the sight on the fixed machine-gun, so if the film, 
upon being developed, showed that the gunner had 
scored a "hit" with the camera, he would have been 
equally successful with an actual machine-gun. The 
gun cameras as developed in the United States were of 
two kinds: one, using a regular Brownie film, took one 
picture each time the trigger was pulled; the other, 
which was virtually a motion-picture camera so con- 
structed as to exactly replace the magazine on a Lewis 
gim, gave a "burst" of exposure with a rapidity equal- 
ling that of a machine-gun firing a burst of shots, and 
was used for training aviators in the handling of their 
flexibly mounted Lewis guns. The resulting film, or 
bromide print, consisted of a string of silhouettes of 
the supposed enemy plane, each with an image of the 
gun-sights superimposed to show where the gun was 
held, with reference to the target, at the instant the 
picture was taken. 

The enormous numbers of pictures taken from the 
skies necessitated a corresponding development and 
manufacture of travelling dark rooms, seventy-five 
complete units of these machines being built and 
shipped overseas. These consisted of mobile photo 
laboratories, having all the equipment necessary for 
the rapid production of prints in the field, for when 
important operations are in progress it is imperative 
that the aero photographs reach the staff at the earli- 
est possible moment after they are taken. The dark 
rooms, which were mounted on trucks, were equipped 
with apparatus for generating the current used in the 



FIGHTERS OF THE SKY 297 

lamps and enlargers, while trailers were fitted with 
sinks, tanks, enlarging cameras, and other necessary 
photographic apparatus. The fact should not be over- 
looked, moreover, that provision had to be made for 
training the vast and for the most part inexperienced 
personnel of the photographic sections in the countless 
new and peculiar phases of taking pictures from the 
skies. 

In considering the development of military aero- 
nautics it must be borne in mind that the maximum 
altitudes attained by airplanes increased enormously 
during the war. In 1914 the record for altitude was 
26,246 feet, or slightly less than five miles. By Janu- 
ary, 1 91 9, the record had been raised to 30,500 feet, an 
increase of more than four-fifths of a mile. In 191 5 the 
Western Front pilots worked at 7,000 feet without fear 
of attack from the ground, and few machines flew at 
heights of more than 10,000 feet. In fact, the ''ceil- 
ing" with the early equipment was about 12,000 feet. 
In the closing months of the war, however, as a re- 
sult of the development of the antiaircraft artillery, 
it became necessary for aviators to climb to 15,000 
feet over the enemy lines, and tactics of the air made 
that machine safest which could fly highest. 

Now it may not have occurred to you that the 
higher you ascend the greater becomes the decrease in 
atmospheric pressure. At 19,000 feet the pressure of 
the atmosphere is one-half the pressure at sea-level. 
That means that a given amount of air in the lungs of 
an aviator flying at that height gives only half the 
oxygen that it would were he on the ground. It is, 



298 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

then, the lack of oxygen, and not, as many suppose, 
the low pressure itself, which makes men weak and 
slow of action at high altitudes. Though these facts 
have been determined by medical research, it is a 
curious phase of the flyer's psychology that most avia- 
tors laugh at the idea. Yet any one who has crossed 
the Rockies or ascended one of the Alpine peaks by 
funicular has noticed that as the altitude increases the 
breathing becomes quicker and deeper, the heart beats 
faster and faster. But though the pilot may, as he 
asserts, continue to feel perfectly fit and well, he is 
not as efficient as when near the ground. His reac- 
tions become slower, he is less prompt to judge dis- 
tances, to aim his guns, to fire, to manoeuvre his plane 
— and this despite the fact that he is usually quite 
unconscious of any impairment of his faculties. He 
will feel dizzy but perfectly happy — autointoxication, 
I believe the doctors call it — ^whereas, as a matter of 
fact, he has lost his judgment; and if he attempts to 
stay at these altitudes he will gradually pass into a 
condition of partial and sometimes total unconscious- 
ness, lose control of his machine, and come crashing 
to the earth. 

The imperative necessity of maintaining flyers at 
the highest possible efficiency was brought home to 
the aviation authorities through studying the reports 
of English air-casualties during the first year of the 
war. The records divided these as follows: 2 per cent 
were due to the enemy, 8 per cent were due to the 
plane, and 90 per cent were due to the men, which 
clearly indicated that something was radically wrong 



FIGHTERS OF THE SKY 299 

with the personnel and that prompt action was neces- 
sary. A thorough study of the situation disclosed the 
fact that practically all of the flying personnel was 
suffering from what is known to scientists as oxygen 
fatigue, caused by flying for many hours a day at high 
altitudes where there was not enough oxygen to feed 
the body. As a result of this discovery, Lieutenant- 
Colonel Dreyer, of the Royal Army Medical Corps, 
designed an oxygen apparatus for use by the British 
air forces, the manufacture of which was immediately 
begun in Paris. So pressing was the need for these 
apparatus that an automobile was kept waiting at the 
plant where they were being manufactured to rush 
each one to the front as soon as it was finished. 

An original model of this apparatus was brought 
to the United States shortly after we entered the war, 
but as it was made entirely by hand, it had to be re- 
designed to meet our manufacturing conditions. The 
perfected oxygen equipment, as used in the American 
Air Service, consists of a small tank, or tanks, accord- 
ing to the amount of oxygen carried, a pressure de- 
vice, a face-mask covering the mouth and nose, and a 
tube connecting the mask with the oxygen reservoir. 
The American mask has combined with it the inter- 
phone whereby the pilot and observer can converse 
with each other while in the air and, in certain cases, 
the receiver of the radio telephone. In May, 1918, six 
complete apparatus were sent overseas by special mes- 
senger to be tried out imder battle conditions, and 
when the war ended 5,000 had been manufactured and 
accepted. All American military planes flying at an 



300 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

altitude of over 10,000 feet are now fitted for the in- 
stallation of oxygen equipment. This includes day- 
bombing, pursuit, and chase planes, and a percentage 
of night-bombing and observation machines. So much 
importance was attached by the military authorities 
to supplying our flying-men with oxygen that a special 
oxygen division was organized and sent to France for 
the purpose of installing the apparatus in the planes. 
Yet, as I have previously remarked, the flyers them- 
selves persist in regarding the apparatus, probably 
because of the discomfort involved in wearing it, with 
amused scepticism. 

Of all the inventions which have sprung from the 
war, none is more amazing, to my way of thinking, 
than the radio telephone. Think of standing on the 
ground and holding a conversation in a normal tone of 
voice with an aviator so high in the sky that you can- 
not see his airplane with the naked eye. Think of it ! 
Before we entered the war, any one save a handful of 
enthusiastic scientists would have ridiculed such a 
suggestion, yet to-day, at any one of a score of flying- 
fields, you can sit at an office desk and converse with 
aviators in the clouds as easily as though you were sit' 
ting opposite them at a dinner-table. 

The enormous advantage which such an invention 
would give to the army possessing it was early recog- 
nized by certain electrical engineers and a few scientifi- 
cally minded officers of the Signal Corps, and, as a 
result of their enthusiasm, before the first contingent 
sailed for France work had been begun on the develop- 




Phnlosraph by Signal Corps, U. S. A. 

RADIO TELEPHONE APPARATUS IN OPERATION ON AN AIRPLANE. 

The pilot and observer are able to talk to each other through the same instrument by means of which 
Ihey communicate wi^h the ground. 




l'lioUi^ia!^li by Siiniil Corp. 



PRESIDENT WILSON TALKING WITH AN AVT.ATOR IN THE CLOUDS BY MEANS OF 
THE RADIO TELEPHONE. 




A RANGE-FINDER FOR ASCERTAINING THE ALTITUDE AND SPEED OF 
AIRPLANES. 

One of the most remarkable inventions of the war. This instrument not only ascertains the altitude 
and position of an airplane but by means of an electric connection automatically sets the sights on 
the anti-aircraft gun. 



FIGHTERS OF THE SKY 301 

ment of a radio-telephone set for airplanes. There is 
no necessity of recounting the innumerable experiments 
and heart-breaking failures before the first real suc- 
cesses were obtained. So far as the radio part of the 
problem was concerned, a solution was had in a com- 
paratively short time. But working this apparatus in 
a swift-moving and terrifically noisy airplane was quite 
a different matter, it was quickly discovered, from 
working it under ordinary conditions on the ground, 
the roar of the engine and the rushing air making it 
impossible to hear one's own voice, much less the weak 
signals of the receiver. One of the first problems to 
be solved, therefore, was to design a head-set which 
would exclude these noises while at the same time per- 
mitting the voice of the telephone to be heard. The 
answer was found in a form of aviator's helmet fitting 
the head so closely as to exclude virtually all extrane- 
ous sounds save those coming through telephone-re- 
ceivers inserted in the helmet so as to fit the ears. No 
sooner was this problem solved, however, than another 
one demanded solution. A means had been devised 
for protecting the receivers from outside noises — but 
how about the transmitter? Every one knows how 
sensitive the ordinary telephone-transmitter is to ex- 
traneous sounds, so it does not require much imagina- 
tion to picture how impossible it would be for the 
aviator to make his voice heard in a transmitter along- 
side a 200 horse-power airplane engine. But a brilliant 
series of experiments, conducted largely by Mr. J. P. 
Minton, of the Western Electric Company, resulted in 
a form of telephone-transmitter or microphone which 



302 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

possessed the remarkable quality of being insensible to 
engine and wind noises and at the same time highly 
responsive to the tones of the voice. With these two 
elements in hand it was thought that the problem was 
solved, but three more months of unremitting work 
were required to perfect the apparatus to a state 
where it was practicable for use by others than ex- 
perts. At last everything was ready, however, and in 
December, 191 7, the officials of the Aircraft Produc- 
tion Board and the joint Army and Navy Technical 
Boards announced that they would witness an ex- 
hibition of the apparatus at the Moraine Flying-Field 
at Dayton. Two days before the date set for the 
demonstration a group of the engineers and mechanics 
who had been working over the problem almost night 
and day during the preceding six months descended, 
with many cases of paraphernalia, on the Ohio town. 
Only the enthusiasts who for the preceding half-year 
had spent their days working over the problem and 
their nights dreaming of it believed that the exhibi- 
tion would prove successful. Every one else was 
sceptical. The plan was to have two planes, both 
carrying radio sets, in the air at the same time, while 
the visiting officials listened in at a ground-station 
located on the top of a near-by hill. That night the 
inventors and their assistants congregated in a room 
of the hotel where they were staying and worked out 
a scenario and held a rehearsal of the morrow's pro- 
gramme. A famous electrical expert represented one 
plane and a young engineer represented the other, 
while the inventors, sitting in the middle of the room, 



FIGHTERS OF THE SKY 303 

gave them their orders and sent them sailing over 
beds, chairs, and tables as it was hoped their planes 
would manoeuvre in the clouds the next day. No one 
slept very well that night. The morning was cold 
and dismal, in keeping with the spirits of all con- 
cerned. Upon the arrival of the exalted ones, among 
whom were several of the foremost scientists and in- 
ventors of America, they were shown the apparatus 
installed in the two planes and were told what it was 
expected to do. They were then escorted up to the 
little station on the hill, where a loud-speaking receiver 
had been connected with the wireless apparatus, so 
that all could hear without the use of head-sets. The 
planes left the ground, and after what seemed an inter- 
minable length of time, there came from the receiver 
the first faint sounds which indicated that they were 
ready to perform. The officials, with their coat-collars 
about their ears, appeared only mildly interested and 
several gave unmistakable signs of being bored. Sud- 
denly, without the slightest warning, out of the horn 
of the loud-speaker came the words: ^^ Hello, ground- 
station ! This is Plane Number One speaking. Do you 
get me all right V The bored expressions on the faces 
of the officials changed to expressions of amazement 
tinged with awe. Instead of the confusing dash-dot- 
dash which they associated with wireless, here was a 
human voice coming out of space clear and distinct — 
yet the speaker was two miles in the air. Soon the 
same signal came from the other plane and the exhibi- 
tion was on. Under command from the ground the 
planes were manoeuvred all over that part of the coun- 



304 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

try. They climbed and volplaned and circled. They 
were sent on scouting expeditions and reported what 
they saw as they travelled through the air. Continu- 
ous conversation was carried on, even when the planes 
were out of sight, and finally, upon command, they 
came tearing down the skies like two huge homing 
pigeons and landed where directed. From that mo- 
ment the radio telephone was sold to the government. 
It was no longer a question as to whether it would 
work, but how soon and in what quantity its manufac- 
ture could be started. 

The primary object of the airplane telephone is to 
make it possible for the commander of an air-squadron 
to control the movement of his men in the air just as a 
drill-sergeant directs the evolutions of a platoon on the 
ground. For this purpose extra-long range is not 
required or, indeed, desired, the distance over which 
they can talk being purposely limited to two or three 
miles, so that the enemy cannot overhear except when 
actually engaged in combat. Then it does not matter. 

Neither my space nor my knowledge of electrical 
engineering are sufficient to permit of explaining in 
detail the working of the radio telephone. It is enough 
to say that a wind-driven generator supplies electric 
current to a couple of vacuum tubes mounted in a 
box filled with coils and condensers. These tubes 
transform the dynamo current into a high-frequency 
alternating current which is fed out into space through 
the antenna. This antenna consists of a copper wire 
about 200 feet long, which with a lead weight on the 
end trails out behind the airplane when it is in flight. 



FIGHTERS OF THE SKY 305 

Normally this wire is wound up on a reel, being let out 
and wound in as occasion demands. With the special 
form of telephone-transmitter already described, the 
words of the aviator are impressed on this wire, the 
electric waves thus set in motion radiating out into 
space, where they are picked up by similar antennae 
either on other planes or on masts on the ground. The 
receiving process is the exact reverse of that used in 
sending, other vacuum tubes taking the high-frequency 
current from the antenna and transforming it so that 
it can be heard in the form of speech in the telephone 
fitted in the aviator's helmet or in the loud-speaking 
horn on the ground. That is about as near as I can 
come to explaining the radio telephone without writ- 
ing a book. 

One of boyhood's most joyous recollections is that 
of "balloon day" at the county fair, when the great 
yellow spheroid in the middle of the race-track enclo- 
sure slowly filled (oh, so slowly, it seemed !), bulged, 
tugged at its moorings, and at last rose majestically 
skyward, the aeronaut, a lithe figure in spangled tights, 
waving down to the sea of upturned faces as he swung 
at ease in his cobweb-like trapeze. But, though the 
recollection of the balloonist's skill and daring remains 
sharp and clear in our minds, so much space has been 
devoted in the war books and the news despatches to 
the exploits of the aviators that we seem to have com- 
pletely lost sight of the no less hazardous work of 
those daring souls who, day after day, in heat and 
cold, in snow and drenching rain, sat huddled in their 



3o6 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

frail baskets under the swaying gas-bags, often a mile 
above the ground, and through their glasses watched 
what the enemy was doing, heedless of the repeated 
attempts made by the enemy's gunners and flyers to 
bring them down. Though they have received practi- 
cally no share of the publicity and praise which has 
been showered upon the flying-men, the officers and 
men of the Balloon Section of the Air Service deserve 
from the public its deepest gratitude and appreciation. 
The perilous nature of their work is shown by the fact 
that in the last six weeks of the war twenty-one Ameri- 
can balloons were lost, six being destroyed by shell-fire 
and fifteen by enemy planes. Its importance is em- 
phasized by the fact that the Germans gave ofiicial 
credit to their aviators of one and a half planes for every 
balloon brought down. 

At the beginning of the war the artillery-fire of 
the Allies was directed for the most part by airplanes. 
Their work, however, left much to be desired. Though 
the plane observers could locate targets fairly well, 
they frequently lost touch with their batteries through 
the difficulty of sending and receiving wireless or visual 
signals from the swiftly moving craft. Thus there 
came into use the captive baUoon, which by the end of 
the war had practically replaced the airplane as a 
director of gun-fire wherever possible, thus making the 
artillery infinitely more efficient than ever before. Sit- 
ting comfortably aloft, the observer in the basket of 
a kite-balloon had the whole panorama of his particular 
station spread beneath him like a map in bas-relief, 
being able to detect, with the aid of powerful glasses, 




A SENTINEL OF THE SKIES. 

Those daring souls who day after day sat huddled in their frail baskets and through their glasses 
watched what the enemy was doing. 




AiN AMERICAN UBsEK\A110.\ BALLOON LEAVING ITS ' BED ' BEHIND THE 
WESTERN FRONT. 




Photograph by U. S. Air Service. 

A BALLOON COMPANY MANCEUVRING A CAQUOT FROM WINCH POSITION TO ITS 

BED. 



FIGHTERS OF THE SKY 307 

anything transpiring within a radius of ten miles or 
more. He was constantly in touch with his batteries 
by telephone and could not only give the gunners, by 
means of co-ordinated maps, the exact location of their 
target and the effect of their bursting shells, but could 
keep the staff informed of enemy troop movements, 
airplane activities, and preparations for impending 
attacks. The balloonist became, indeed, a veritable 
sentinel of the skies, hovering over the battle-lines 
with the persistency and the keen, long-range vision of 
a hawk. He played a less spectacular part in the 
great drama than the airplane scout or fighter in the 
latter's free and dazzling flights, but his duties were 
scarcely less important. Nor did he suffer from ennui 
during his stays aloft. When a kite-balloon went up 
along the battle-front it at once became the subject of 
the keenest attention by the enemy because it was 
known to be up on business and was certain to be the 
cause of damage unless it was forced down. Long- 
range, high- velocity guns were trained on it and, from 
the upper levels of the air, planes came swooping down 
upon it in their attempts to dash through the screen 
of shells from the antiaircraft guns and put an incen- 
diary bullet into the sausage-shaped, elephant-colored 
gas-bag which so insolently defied them. And a bullet 
which got home meant the instant ignition of the 
highly inflammable hydrogen, the quick destruction of 
the balloon and, perhaps, the occupants of the basket 
as well, unless they could get away in their parachute. 
From the moment the gas leaped into flame until the 
fall of the balloon was rarely over fifteen or twenty 



/ 



3o8 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

seconds, so quick thinking and quick work was called 
for if the men in the basket were to jump to safety. 
The pilot of the airplane could dodge and swerve and 
slip away from the guns by a himdred shrewd devices; 
not so the pilot of the kite-balloon anchored to its 
windlass. He had to carry on his abstruse mathemati- 
cal calculations unconcernedly, his spare moments 
being enlivened by watching the flash of an enemy gun 
on a distant hill and then waiting twenty or thirty sec- 
onds for the whining messenger of death to reach him, 
pondering, meanwhile, on the accuracy of that particu- 
lar gunner. As a matter of fact, few direct shell-hits 
on a balloon were recorded during the war, most of 
the balloons which were brought down having been 
accounted for by incendiary bullets from diving planes. 
Just as some sportsmen devote their energies to moose 
and elk and grizzlies while others specialize on smaller 
game, so some of the airplane pilots made a specialty 
of hunting "sausages," and at this thrilling and highly 
perilous sport became amazingly expert. When the 
Crown Prince's assaults on Verdun were at their height, 
I saw eight French aviators start out to bring down 
eight German balloons. Within less than thirty min- 
utes seven of the drachen had come down in flames — 
which shows that a balloonist was not a good life- 
insurance risk. The average life of an observation 
balloon on the Western Front was estimated to be 
about fifteen days. Sometimes it lasted only a few 
minutes. There is a record of an American balloon 
passing unscathed through the whole period of Ameri- 
can activity on a busy sector, but it was generally con- 



FIGHTERS OF THE SKY 309 

sidered that a balloon which has seen five or six months 
of ordinary non-war service has done its duty and is 
unsafe because of the deterioration of the fabric. 

In August, 1914, Germany had perhaps a hundred 
kite or "sausage" balloons, France and England a very 
few. The German type was known as the "Drachen," 
and consisted of a gas-cylinder of rubberized cloth 
about sixty-five feet long and twenty-seven feet in 
diameter, with hemispherical ends. For stability a 
lobe, about a third of the diameter of the cylinder, was 
attached to the underbody of the gas-bag and curved 
up around the end. This lobe, made of a lighter fabric 
than the bag itself, automatically filled with air as the 
balloon ascended and acted as a rudder to hold the 
balloon in line. For further stability three tail-cups, 
one behind the other, with mouths open to the wind, 
were attached to the rear of the balloon. 

While the Drachen balloon was a rather clumsy 
affair and proved unstable in high winds, its impor- 
tance as an adjunct to the artillery was early recognized 
by the Allies, for the results of its work daily became 
more apparent. Though the armies of France, Eng- 
land, Italy, and the United States made repeated ex- 
periments in an attempt to evolve a type which should 
possess greater stability and permit of higher altitudes 
being attained, it remained for Captain Caquot, of the 
French Army, to produce a balloon which possessed 
both of these qualities, his name now being used as a 
designation for the type which he invented and which 
was in general used by the AlHed armies during the 
last year of the war. The Caquot received its greatest 



3IO THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

compliment from Germany when her army adopted 
this type of balloon and discarded the Drachen. 

The Caquot is an elongated gas-bag, ninety-three 
feet long and twenty-eight feet in its widest diameter, 
made of rubberized cotton cloth and sharply stream- 
lined. Hydrogen gas is the ascensive power used, lift- 
ing the cable, two men, basket, and all other equip- 
ment to a maximum altitude, in the best weather 
conditions, of over 5,000 feet. It has a balloonet, or 
air-chamber, within the main body of the gas-envelope, 
which as the balloon ascends fills automatically with 
air through a simple scoop placed under the nose of 
the balloon. The air and gas chambers are separated 
by a diaphragm of cloth. When the balloon is fully 
inflated this diaphragm rests on the underbody of the 
gas-envelope, there being no air in the balloonet. 
When the balloon descends, minus the several hundred 
feet of hydrogen which has escaped into the air, it 
would lose its shape and grow flabby, a condition of con- 
siderable potential danger, were it not for the balloonet, 
or air-chamber, coming into play. As the air is driven 
in through the scoop, precisely as an air-scoop fixed in 
the port-hole of an ocean liner brings air into a cabin, 
the diaphragm rises and takes up the lost bulk in the 
gas-envelope above. In other words, the escaping gas 
is replaced by air by means of what amounts to an 
elastic air-envelope below the gas-envelope. Is that 
quite clear? Three lobes of rubberized fabric give 
stability to the balloon. They are filled automatically 
by the wind, if it blows, and, expanding to their full 
capacity, act as rudders to hold the balloon steady. If 




AN AMERICAN KITE BALLOON ABOUT TO ASCEND. 

The lobes of rubberized fabric give stability to the balloon. They are filled automatically by the 
wind, if it blows, and. expanding to their full capacity, act as rudders to hold the balloon steady. 



< 


% 

^ 






< 


< 




-r 


^ 



FIGHTERS OF THE SKY 311 

there is no wind there is, of course, no need for the 
lobes and they hang loosely, like elephants' ears, 
Caquots frequently being called "elephants" because 
of these drooping lobes. 

When the United States entered the war we were 
practically without this type of aircraft, the only bal- 
loon possessed by our military forces on the Mexican 
border having been the gift of an Akron rubber com- 
pany to the Ohio National Guard. In April, 191 7, the 
whole production of military balloons in the United 
States was not over two or three a month, but at the 
request of the government the various rubber manu- 
facturers went whole-heartedly into the business of 
production, so that when the war ended we were pro- 
ducing ten balloons a day. Up to November 11 there 
had been produced for the United States Army alone 
1,025 balloons of all types, 642 of these being the final 
Type R Observation Balloon. Propaganda and target 
balloons were likewise developed and produced, as 
were new-type parachutes, canvas balloon hangars, 
and 1,221,582 feet of steel cable — a sufficient length 
of single-strand, specially manufactured wire to more 
than reach around the globe. 

One of the chief difficulties which had to be over- 
come was the question of a sufficient supply of cotton 
cloth of proper strength and texture, for balloon cloth 
was practically unknown in this country when we 
entered the war. In order to keep up with the balloon 
schedule of the War Department, the manufacturers 
required millions of yards of a very high-grade cloth 
with a weave of 140 threads to the inch both ways. 



312 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

At first the wastage due to imperfect balloon cloth was 
enormous, frequently running as high as 60 per cent, 
but by care and effort this was reduced to perhaps 10 
per cent in total from the loom to the balloon. The 
wastage was largely caused by "slubs," knots, and 
other imperfections of weaving, which prevented an 
even surface for rubberizing and consequently impaired 
the strength and gas-holding qualities of the cloth. 
Hundreds of inspectors, both factory and government 
employees, were necessary to get an approximately 
perfect fabric, and all had to be developed for this 
work. Indeed, the making of balloon cloth in the 
United States amounted to the development of an 
entirely new industry, for which thousands of men had 
to be specially trained for months. It will give you a 
better conception of the magnitude of this new indus- 
try, perhaps, when I tell you that to make ten balloons 
a day it was necessary for the cotton-mills to weave 
about 600,000 yards of this special balloon cloth a 
month, and this required 3,200 looms. It is a tribute 
to the skill of the American weavers that reports from 
the front stated that the American fabric burnt very 
much more slowly than that made in Europe, thus giv- 
ing the observer more time to get away in his parachute 
and minimizing the danger of the burning balloon fall- 
ing on him. 

Everything connected with the kite-balloon pre- 
sented more or less of a problem because it was new. 
The mobile windlass, for example, by which the balloon 
was let up and pulled down on its cable, had to be 
developed from nothing But the genius of the Ameri- 



FIGHTERS OF THE SKY 313 

can manufacturer overcame this difficulty as it did 
every other in the manufacture of instruments for war. 
Though steam was the motive power first used for bal- 
loon windlasses, before the close of the war American 
ingenuity had developed both gas and electric wind- 
lasses which were thoroughly efficient. The mobile 
windlass could move on the road under its own power 
at a speed of twenty miles an hour, and could tow a 
balloon in the air at the rate of five miles an hour, or 
even better if necessity demanded. The gasoline wind- 
lass has made a record pull-down of 1,600 feet a min- 
ute, bringing down its balloon at a speed more than 
three times that of the fastest passenger-elevator. 

A sufficient supply of hydrogen gas was, at the be- 
ginning, another of the balloon problems. Hydrogen, 
before the war, was a by-product in the manufacture 
of commercial oxygen, and only a small quantity was 
used in this country. But the sudden demand for 
millions of cubic feet of this gas was promptly met by 
the establishment of government plants and the ex- 
pansion of privately owned ones. Though by far the 
greater part of the gas used in balloons at home and 
abroad was made at permanent supply stations and 
shipped to the points where it was needed, in steel 
cylinders, an extremely ingenious type of portable gen- 
erator was developed for the manufacture of hydrogen 
in the field. When these portable hydrogen generators 
were unnecessary or unavailable, the gas shipped from 
long distances was stored in high-pressure cylinders or 
"nurse balloons," the latter being simply huge bags of 
rubberized fabric, each with a capacity of 5,000 cubic 



314 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

feet of hydrogen, which were used in the same way as 
the ordinary steel gasometers to be seen in any Ameri- 
can city. 

Hydrogen is itself an inflammable gas, and when 
mixed with air or oxygen is dangerously explosive. It 
has, therefore, always been a source of great concern to 
balloonists, who had long dreamed of a non-inflamma- 
ble, non-explosive gas, sufficiently light to function as 
does hydrogen. It was known that helium was such 
a gas, but it was, until very recently, so scarce and 
costly that its use in balloons had scarcely been given 
a serious thought. Not more than loo cubic feet of 
helium had ever been produced up to the time we 
started our balloon programme, and it was valued at 
$1,700 a cubic foot. Scientific investigators in the 
employ of the government discovered about this time, 
however, that certain natural gases in the United 
States contained limited quantities of helium, and the 
problem then resolved itself into one of extracting the 
helium from these gases in sufficient quantities, and at 
a sufficiently low cost, to make practical its use. Funds 
were forthcoming and, under the supervision of the 
Navy Department and the Bureau of Mines, the proc- 
ess of gas liquefaction was put into operation, with the 
result that on the day of the Armistice there were on 
the docks, ready for shipment overseas, 147,000 cubic 
feet of helium with a pre-war value of a quarter of a 
billion dollars. Plants were under construction which, 
had the war continued, would have produced 50,000 
cubic feet of this gas a day at a cost of approximately 
ten cents per cubic foot. The importance of this dis- 



FIGHTERS OF THE SKY 315 

covery cannot be overestimated, for it marks the open- 
ing of a new era in lighter-than-airship navigation. In 
war it will make the incendiary bullet, which has caused 
the destruction of countless balloons, a joke. The 
only way to bring down a balloon filled with helium 
will be literally to tear it apart by a direct hit with a 
high-explosive shell. Under peace conditions, it opens 
up undreamed-of possibilities in the development of 
new types of dirigible airships, as the danger from 
lightning, static electricity, and sparks of any kind has 
been entirely eliminated. To cross the Atlantic in a 
helium-filled balloon will be safer, so far as danger 
from fire is concerned, than to cross the continent in a 
train. 

Do you remember that hot September afternoon 
at the county fair when you sat perched on the white- 
washed race-track fence, your face turned skyward, 
and watched with fascinated eyes the tiny yellow 
globule, high, high in the blue, which you had seen 
rise from the ground half an hour before as a giant gas- 
balloon ? And do you remember how, as you watched, 
the band in the grand stand suddenly stopped playing 
and an awed hush fell upon the crowd, and you saw a 
tiny something detach itself from the yellow globule 
and drop into space, at first falling with sickening 
speed, then slower, still slower, until the object, which 
you knew was a man in pink tights (though sometimes, 
in order to heighten the sensation, it was a young and, 
of course, beautiful woman), landed quite gently in a 
distant field? In those days we little dreamed that 



3i6 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

the strange, umbrella-like contrivance which brought 
the aeronaut safely to earth would ever be used for 
any other purpose than to thrill the admission-paying 
multitudes, but the emergencies and necessities pro- 
voked by the Great War turned things with which we 
were all familiar to unfamiliar uses, as, for example, 
when it converted a farm tractor into a fighting-tank. 
Thus it was that the observers came to use parachutes 
to escape from their burning balloons just as the in- 
mates of an ofiice-building dash down the iron fire- 
escapes when somebody shouts "Fire!" 

At first the individual or one-man parachute was 
used to insure the escape of the observer in the basket 
from his burning balloon, but though the man escaped, 
the valuable maps and records were lost. In order to 
save these records there was invented the basket para- 
chute. This was considerably larger in diameter than 
the individual parachute, and when cut away brought 
the basket with all that it contained — men, records, 
instruments, everything — safely and quickly to the 
ground. All the observer had to do was to pull a cord 
and he started downward. It was easier than step- 
ping into an elevator and saying: "Ground floor, 
please." Amazingly few fatalities occurred in the 
hundreds of cases in which the individual and basket 
parachutes were used in actual war service or in train- 
ing. I heard of one balloon observer who was forced 
to make four parachute jumps in a single day, and of 
another who made three in four hours, two balloons 
being burned over his head. Thirty parachute jumps 
were made by American observers during the Argonne 




A BASKET PARACHUTE DROP. 

The basket parachute brings men, instrument, and records safely to the ground. 




BALLOONIST MAKING A PARACHUTE JUMP FROM AN ALTITUDE OF 7.!K)0 FEET. 



FIGHTERS OF THE SKY 317 

offensive alone. Yet the safety of the parachute is 
demonstrated beyond all question by the fact that 
during the entire time the American forces were in the 
field only one death occurred as the direct result of a 
parachute drop, and in that particular instance the 
burning balloon fell directly on top of the open para- 
chute, setting it on fire and allowing the observer to 
fall the rest of the distance to the earth. 

It is interesting to note that the use of parachutes 
is relatively new compared even with ballooning. The 
man who developed the parachute and who first de- 
scended safely to earth by its means — Thomas S. 
Baldwin — now holds a major's commission in the 
American Air Service, and during the war had direct 
charge of the inspection of all army balloons and para- 
chutes. As the result of a life spent in performing 
aerial exploits of all kinds, under all conditions and in 
all parts of the world, Major Baldwin knows what is 
and what is not safe, so that when a balloon or para- 
chute was sent into action the observer always had the 
satisfaction of knowing that the world's most famous 
balloonist had given it his 0. K. 

Speaking of parachute jumps reminds me of an 
incident which actually occurred on one of the Amer- 
ican sectors toward the close of the war. Despite the 
fact that only one American balloonist lost his hfe 
in making a parachute jump — and in that case the 
fatality was caused by the burning balloon falling on 
and setting fire to the parachute — a very considerable 
element of risk is involved in the oerformance. In 



3i8 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

fact, it became the custom to recommend a man 
making a parachute jump for the Distinguished Ser- 
vice Cross, or, if he was operating with the French, 
for the Croix de Guerre. 

Just before the opening of the Argonne offensive 
an observation balloon over the American lines was 
attacked by a German plane and sent down in flames, 
the observer escaping by means of his parachute. 

"You'll get the D. S. C. all right," his friends 
greeted him, as he disentangled himself from the para- 
chute harness. 

"We're sending up another balloon in a few 
minutes," said the commanding officer. "Want to 
try it again?" 

"Surest thing you know, sir," replied the grin- 
ning youngster. 

But before the second balloon had been in the 
air an hour another enemy plane swooped down upon 
it, like a hawk on a chicken-yard, and it too burst into 
flame. Again the observer floated to safety beneath 
his parachute. 

"I guess I've got that D. S. C. copper-riveted 
this time," he remarked; but, when a third balloon 
ascended, he was in the basket. Once more a Ger- 
man plane came tearing down the skies, a stream of 
bullets ripped the silken gas-bag, and for the third 
time that day the observer reached the earth by the 
parachute route. 

"You'll probably get the Croix de Guerre as well 
as the D. S. C," his friends assured him. "The French 
are strong for this sort of thing. They may even give 
you the Legion of Honor." 



FIGHTERS OF THE SKY 319 

Treading on air, the youngster returned to bal- 
loon headquarters. Tacked on the bulletin-board in 
the hallway was a General Order. He paused to 
glance at it. This is what he read: 

"It is hereby directed that the custom of recom- 
mending officers making parachute jumps for the Dis- 
tinguished Service Cross or other decorations be dis- 
continued." 

Though the question of providing proper clothing 
for our flying-men and balloon observers did not loom 
large when compared with the vast problems involved 
in the production of engines, spruce, balloon cloth, 
bombs, and machine-guns, it was nevertheless an ex- 
ceedingly important one, for an aviator cannot do his 
work if he is cold, and it is always bitterly cold in the 
higher air-lanes. A man flying at 20,000 feet, say, 
suffers more from the cold than he would on the ice- 
fields at the North Pole. Aviators are commissioned 
officers, and when not at work wear the regular uni- 
form, which, as in the case of all officers, is furnished by 
the officer himself. But the clothing required for work 
in the air, being of a highly special character and very 
expensive, is loaned to the flyers by the government. 
In view of this, it is a source of satisfaction to know 
that it was frankly admitted on the front that our 
flyers were by far the best and most efficiently equipped 
of any nation. 

After many tests and much development, the fol- 
lowing outfit was devised: On the head was worn, in 
moderate weather, first a woollen hood, or helmet, so 
designed as to fit closely over the entire head and 



320 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

shoulders. In extremely cold weather, or for high- 
flight work, there was worn a silk hood of like design 
and double thickness, having between its layers an 
electrically heated unit connected by copper- wire cables 
extending through the suit proper with the generator 
on the engine of the plane. Over this silk hood was 
worn a soft-leather helmet lined with fur, the face was 
entirely covered with a wool-lined leather mask, and 
the eyes were protected by goggles. When it was 
necessary for the aviator to use the radiotelephone, 
however, the fur-lined helmet was replaced by the 
radio helmet, a leather affair somewhat similar in de- 
sign to the other but so fashioned as to contain the 
receivers of a wireless telephone. For high-flight work, 
in addition to the above equipment, a rubber oxygen 
mask, which contained a transmitter permitting the 
wearer to speak as weU as hear by wireless, was also 
worn. This mask was attached by a flexible tube to 
a tank of oxygen carried in the plane, being so arranged 
that it automatically fed the aviator with the amount 
of oxygen required for the altitude at which he was 
flying. 

Over the body was worn a one-piece flying suit of 
waterproof, airproof material, reaching from throat to 
feet, buttoned tightly at wrists and ankles, and lined 
throughout with fur. Through these suits, between 
the fur and the outer coverings, were placed wire cables 
terminating in snap-fasteners at neck, wrists, and 
ankles, to which could be attached silk-covered wires 
leading to other electrical heating units in the helmets, 
gloves, and moccasins, all of which were warmed by 



FIGHTERS OF THE SKY 321 

a current drawn from the generator on the engine. 
Hence, though our aviators not infrequently flew in a 
temperature of thirty degrees below zero, they were as 
warm and comfortable as though they were sitting 
before a log fire at home — much more comfortable, in 
fact, than were their relatives and friends in America 
on the fireless Sundays which made uncomfortable the 
first winter of the war. On his hands the aviator 
wore, in addition to the electrically heated gloves, a 
pair of muskrat gauntlets extending nearly to the 
elbow; on his feet, over the electrically heated mocca- 
sins, another pair of moccasins, lined with sheepswool, 
reaching almost to the knees. It is scarcely necessary 
to add that our air-fighters spent more time in dress- 
ing than does a chorus-girl in a comic opera, and that 
when they were dressed they looked like a cross be- 
tween an Arctic explorer and a deep-sea diver. 

The question of obtaining the fur for lining this 
clothing presented a perplexing problem, for there 
were required vast quantities of pelts or skins of ex- 
treme warmth and sufficiently strong to withstand 
rough usage, but not too bulky or heavy. After con- 
siderable investigation it was found that these require- 
ments were met by the skin of the Nuchwang dog, 
which inhabits one of the provinces of north China, 
though I have no doubt that sable or ermine would 
have answered the purpose equally well had cost been 
no consideration. The demands of the American Air 
Service required practically all of these skins that 
could be had in China and necessitated the lifting of 
an embargo to bring them into the United States, 



322 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

which, thanks to the co-operation of the War Trade 
Board, was obtained. The last purchase before the 
Armistice was signed called for 500,000 of these dog- 
skins. A strange thing, was it not, that the lust for 
power of one William HohenzoUern, late of Berlin and 
Potsdam, should bring about, among countless other 
things, the slaughter of half a million dogs in far-off 
China? Though figures are, as a rule, dry things, the 
magnitude of the Air Service's clothing problem can 
be better appreciated by my giving a few of them. 
The work in hand for air-clothing when the Armistice 
was signed involved upward of $5,000,000. Fifty thou- 
sand fur-lined flying suits at $36.25; over a 100,000 
leather helmets at $4.50; a like number of leather 
coats at prices ranging from $10 to $30, and 80,000 
goggles at $3.50 a pair reflect the major items and ex- 
plain how the government spent some of the money 
which you paid for your Liberty Bonds. 

Though in this chapter I have attempted to sketch 
the manifold phases of America's preparation for ob- 
taining supremacy in the sky, I have purposely left 
until the last the most important phase of all — the fly- 
ing-men themselves. The personnel side of the Air 
Service, including the selection, training, organization, 
and operation of the flying forces, developed, within 
the year following America's declaration of war, into 
one of the most remarkable educational systems in 
this or any other country, with a larger student body 
and a more diverse curriculum than any university in 
the world. Teaching men to fly, to send messages by 



FIGHTERS OF THE SKY 323 

wireless, to operate machine-guns in the air, to gauge 
the effectiveness of artillery-fire by its bursts, to read 
and make maps, to operate gas-engines, and to travel 
hundreds of miles by compass; teaching other men 
to read the enemy's strategy from aerial photographs, 
and still others to repair instruments, ignition systems, 
propellers, airplane wings, and motors, required a vast 
network of schools and flying-fields, a huge force of in- 
structors, many of whom themselves had to be trained, 
and an amazing mass of equipment and curricula. 

The pilot is the heart and brain of the whole fly- 
ing apparatus. Parts of the airplane may break with- 
out serious result, but when the pilot breaks, even 
momentarily, nothing is left to direct the flight. The 
man and the machine come crashing to the ground. 
The early view that any one who "had the nerve" 
could fly caused hundreds of unnecessary deaths and 
an enormous avoidable waste of material. The lesson, 
for which we paid in bitter and costly experience, was 
that it is essential to choose flyers who are especially 
fitted for particular work, and then to keep them in 
condition to perform their duties at all times by using 
the same thought and care which is expended in the 
feeding, exercising, and conditioning of a race-horse. 
Nature, remember, never intended man to fly in the 
same sense that she did not intend him for life in a 
submarine. Conditions are unnatural from the time 
he leaves the ground until he returns. There are 
countless obstacles which he must overcome. He flies 
in an atmosphere deficient in that oxygen which is 
"the breath of life"; he is subjected in war to the 



324 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

shell-fire of antiaircraft guns and attack by enemy 
aircraft; he travels through space at a speed far ex- 
ceeding that of the fastest express-train. In attaining 
altitudes and breathing rarefied air, the flyer is shak- 
ing his fist in the face of nature. 

It is imperative, therefore, to classify the flyer for 
the kind of work he is physically capable of perform- 
ing. Some men are not able to fly at higher levels 
than a few thousand feet without suffering deleterious 
effects, while others may operate at five miles above 
the surface of the earth without physical harm. It 
is necessary to know a flyer's limitations before his 
training is specialized, for the saving of time and 
money, and, indeed, the flyer himself. Just as the 
trainer of a varsity track team classifies his available 
material into sprinters, distance men, broad jumpers, 
high jumpers, and weight throwers, so the director 
of a flying-school must classify his material into men 
fitted for combat, observation, and bombing. It would 
be an obvious waste of time and effort to train a man 
for combat work at high altitudes and then discover 
that his physical limitations permitted only of his 
doing bombing work at comparatively low levels. In 
order to accomplish this work of classification, branch 
research medical laboratories were established at the 
various flying-fields, which, by means of certain stand- 
ardized tests, especially the one on the "rebreather'* 
machine, placed the flyers in their proper categories. 
The rebreathing tests were conducted in a room so 
designed, by the gradual expulsion of its oxygen, as to 
create the exact and various conditions that would 



FIGHTERS OF THE SKY 325 

exist at any known altitude. Physicians and physi- 
ological experts, themselves supplied with oxygen 
through tubes, remained in the room throughout the 
tests, closely observing the effect produced on the 
candidate by the gradual decrease of the oxygen sup- 
ply. It was soon found that a man's faculty to respond 
to sight, sound, and touch becomes more dormant as 
the air becomes more rarefied, and it was to offset this 
condition that the oxygen apparatus which I have de- 
scribed in preceding pages was designed. The effect 
of low oxygen upon the mental process varies greatly, 
however, according to the individual. He usually 
becomes mentally inefficient at an altitude at which 
there is as yet no serious failure of his vital bodily func- 
tions. By simple tests of mental alertness during these 
rebreathing experiments, such as directing the candi- 
date to press designated buttons controlling electric 
lights of certain colors, controlling a volume of sound 
by operating a pedal with his feet, and the Hke, it was 
easy to determine that one flier would lose his mental 
alertness at 15,000 feet, while another would retain 
full control of his faculties at nearly double that 
height. 

In order to accomplish the best results, a compre- 
hensive programme was undertaken, providing for the 
standardization of both tests and examiners. Sixty- 
seven military units were established, each examining 
from ten to sixty applicants a day, there being required, 
in addition to the complete physical examination em- 
bracing all the features ordinarily required of men 
entering the military service, rigid tests of the special 



326 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

senses of vision, hearing, and motion sensing. Yet, 
despite the severity of the tests to which the candi- 
dates were subjected, the records show that 70.7 of 
the appHcants qualified. But the work of the sur- 
geons did not end when they had passed a man as 
physically fitted for training as an aviator. On the 
contrary, it had only begun. The candidate was not 
only kept under the closest medical observation during 
his training days, but this observation did not relax 
even after he had become a fully fledged flyer with the 
silver wings embroidered on his breast, for the "flight 
surgeon" who was attached to every squadron was 
instructed to keep the flyers physically fit and to care- 
fully investigate the causes of all such accidents as 
might be attributed to the mental or physical failure 
of the flyers themselves. Keeping the flyer fit was 
by no means as simple a matter as it sounds, for it 
included seeing that the men took the necessary 
amount of physical exercise, the provision of proper 
recreation, watching the state of fatigue of the in- 
dividual, making arrangements for leave or furlough, 
determining the quantity and nature of their food and 
the questions of alcohol and tobacco, and re-examining 
them at frequent intervals. Any one who knows how 
temperamental many flying-men are inclined to be 
will reahze that the flight surgeons held no sinecures. 
During the last few months of the war an appara- 
tus was perfected whereby students could acquire fly- 
ing experience and training without leaving the ground. 
This machine, known as the "Ruggles Orientator," is 
a modification of the universal joint, composed of three 



FIGHTERS OF THE SKY 327 

concentric rings so pivoted as to permit the fuselage, 
which is pivoted within the innermost ring, to be put 
through every possible evolution experienced in actual 
flying — the candidate being able to experience, while 
safely on the ground, the sensations of nose-diving, 
tail-diving, side-slipping, looping the loop, and all the 
rest — everything, in fact, except forward progression. 
I feel certain that a man of Mr. Ruggles's amazing 
ingenuity could have satisfied both the parent and 
child of the ancient verse: 

"'Mother, may I go in to swim?' 
'Yes, my darling daughter. 
Hang your hose on a hickory limb, 
And don't go near the water.'" 



VII 
"M. I." 

IN writing the story of Military Intelligence I feel 
as though I were picking my way along a narrow 
and slippery path which is bordered on either side by 
precipices and is in places obscured by fog. On the 
one hand, I am in danger of unconsciously overempha- 
sizing the mysterious and sensational aspects of the 
subject; on the other, of making it appear more com- 
monplace and prosaic than it really is. And, at every 
few steps, I find my progress hindered by the veil of 
secrecy which necessarily enveloped certain activities 
of the division during the war, and which it has not 
been deemed wise entirely to lift with the return of 
peace. And there is still another difficulty. The 
public has in a large measure obtained its conceptions 
of military intelligence work from the novels of Sir 
Arthur Conan Doyle, Mr. Robert W. Chambers, and 
Mr. E. Phillips Oppenheim. So, if the pages of this 
narrative are not filled with alluring adventuresses of 
dazzHng beauty, cloaked assassins, secret agents flit- 
ting about the countryside in high-powered cars, 
German barons disguised as head waiters, mysterious 
signals flashed by night to lurking U-boats, messages 
written in invisible ink, and midnight meetings in sub- 
terranean chambers, my readers will be disappointed 
and dissatisfied and will probably beheve in their 

hearts that I am holding something out on them. 

328 



"M. I." 329 

The story depends, after all, on the angle from 
which you look at it. I know an officer of the Military 
Intelligence Division who goes about on tiptoe, figura- 
tively speaking, with his finger always on his lips/ He 
is so tight-mouthed that Colonel House seems gar- 
rulous beside him. This officer has been of enormous 
service to his country, and the importance of his work 
fully justifies the secrecy and mystery with which he 
surrounds it, yet his duties have been performed at an 
office desk in Washington, with a table of logarithms 
at his elbow, and, so far as action and adventure are 
concerned, his life has been about as exciting as that of 
a professor of mathematics. I know another man, 
likewise connected with the Military Intelligence Divi- 
sion, who, assuming the guise of a workman, succeeded 
in obtaining admission to the councils of the I. W. W. 
and of criminals operating in the forests of the North- 
west, and who did more than any single person, 
perhaps, to unearth the conspiracy which had for its 
object the crippling of our airplane programme. For 
weeks on end he carried his Hfe in his hands, for, had 
his identity been suspected, he would have met a sud- 
den and mysterious end by knife or bullet. Yet he 
speaks of his adventures as casually as though he had 
been in no greater danger than a Fifth Avenue police- 
man. 

The fact is that the truth lies somewhere between 
the extremes represented by these two instances. The 
opportunities which have been afforded me to investi- 
gate the subject lead to the conclusion that, though 
MiHtary Intelligence is, in many of its phases, as hard- 



330 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

boiled and unromantic as Standard Oil, it is neverthe- 
less thickly sprinkled with incidents and episodes 
which would have provided material for the creators 
of LeCoq and Sherlock Holmes. Though a fairly care- 
ful perusal of the files of "M. I. D.," as the Division of 
Military Intelligence is commonly referred to in the 
army, discloses no evidence that German spies of the 
caliber of Karl Lody and Bolo Pasha operated in this 
country during the war, they do contain the dossiers 
of enemy agents whose personalities and exploits meet 
all the requirements for characters in spy fiction. Prob- 
ably the nearest approach to the high-class spy, as made 
familiar by the articles in the Sunday supplements and 
the magazines, was Captain Franz von Rintelen, naval 
attache of the German Embassy in Washington, who is 
now enjoying an enforced sojourn in a large stone cha- 
teau as the guest of the government. Though the 
equally notorious Madame Victorica, a titled adven- 
turess in the pay of the Wilhelmstrasse, filled several of 
the specifications of the secret agent of fiction, truth 
compels me to destroy certain illusions which the public 
has held concerning this lady by stating that she was by 
no means young, that she was only passably good- 
looking, and that she was so far from clever that her 
own boastfulness led to her apprehension. The other 
enemy agents who operated in this country were, for 
the most part, former privates in the German Army 
or petty officers and stewards on German liners, the 
most picturesque of the lot, a man named Bode, being 
so inefficient that he was dismissed by his own govern- 
ment, whereupon, being without funds, he surrendered 



"M. I." 331 

himself to the American authorities. He will receive 
board and lodging at government expense for some 
years to come. Though the beautiful young Madame 
Storch, who died under mysterious circumstances at 
Ellis Island a few days after her arrest, possessed a 
certain romantic interest, she and her three companions 
were so weak in character and of such small-caliber 
intelligence, that it is exceedingly doubtful if the Wil- 
helmstrasse ever intrusted them with any important 
work or confided to them any important secrets. Let 
it be perfectly clear, however, that nothing is further 
from my intention than to minimize the deadly gravity 
of the German-spy menace in this country during the 
war, or to suggest that, had no steps been taken to 
check it, it would not have caused the loss of millions 
of American dollars and thousands of American lives. 
That the national safety was not more gravely im- 
perilled by these enemy agents was not due to their in- 
efficiency, or to the weakness of the German espionage 
system, but to the efficiency, resourcefulness, and un- 
remitting vigilance of the Division of Military Intelli- 
gence, which, I might add, frequently carried on its 
work under the most disheartening condition. 

Military intelligence is the term applied to all such 
information as may be of value to the successful prose- 
cution of a war. The Military Intelligence Division 
is that branch of the General Staff which is organized 
to secure this information. Its field of inquiry in- 
cludes the investigation of active and potential enemies, 
allies, and neutrals; their military, political, and eco- 
nomic condition; their state of mind, their secret ac- 



332 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

tivities at home and abroad, and their strategic and 
tactical plans for present or future campaigns. A well- 
organized intelligence service provides, moreover, for 
estimating and safeguarding the resources of its own 
country; for protecting war industries and means of 
transportation; for stimulating the morale of its troops 
and of the civil population; for frustrating enemy 
agents and preventing the dissemination of enemy 
propaganda. Thus arises the distinction between the 
positive and the negative aspects of the service. The 
former, known as Positive Intelligence, concerns itself 
with the collection and distribution of information. 
It publishes estimates of the military, economic, politi- 
cal, and psychological status of various countries; 
prints maps of enemy districts, with particular refer- 
ence to fortifications, harbors, and routes of travel; 
deciphers intercepted messages, and translates foreign 
documents. The Negative Branch of the service con- 
cerns itself with the frustration of all agents, military 
or civil, who are consciously or unconsciously of value 
to the enemy. This is known as Counter-Espionage, 
or Negative Intelligence. It establishes a system of 
propaganda designed to neutralize the propaganda of 
the enemy; it detects and causes the arrest of spies 
among the troops as well as in the civil population; it 
censors news and information given to the public; it 
prevents enemy agents from entering or leaving the 
country, and it investigates the causes of economic 
disturbances and unrest. 

Though military intelligence work was undertaken 
by the army in 1885, in response to a demand for in- 



"M. I." 333 

formation from the Secretary of War, it was not until 
the United States found itself an actual belligerent in 
the Great War that the inmiense importance of the 
work was fully realized. Incredible as it may seem, 
when General Pershing set sail for France in the spring 
of 191 7, the entire personnel of the Military Intelligence 
Section, as it was then called, consisted of four officers 
(of which one was myself) and three clerks. Due, 
however, to the forcible arguments and the breadth 
of vision of its first chief. Colonel Ralph H. Van Deman, 
the foundation was laid for the present vast organiza- 
tion, whose activities expanded, at the demands of 
war, until, when the Armistice was signed, they virtually 
covered the globe. In addition to the huge military 
intelligence personnel in Washington, a carefully or- 
ganized intelligence service is maintained in each camp, 
post, and station, as well as in the field. Though these 
officers are appointed by their respective division or 
department commanders, the responsibility for their 
instruction and the control of their counter-espionage 
activities rest upon the Director of Military Intelligence, 
at present (June, 19 19) Brigadier- General Marlborough 
Churchill. During the war the Military Intelligence 
Division maintained the closest liaison with the Director 
of Naval Intelligence, the Department of Justice, the 
agents of the departments of State, Labor, and the 
Treasury, the War Trade Board, the War Industries 
Board, the Censorship Board, the National Research 
Council, the American Protective League, and the 
Council of National Defense, all of these organizations 
being able, through the medium of their countless 



334 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

branches, agents, and correspondents, to provide Mili- 
tary Intelligence with enormous amounts of valuable 
information which it could not otherwise easily have 
secured. 

The Administrative Branch of the Military Intelli- 
gence Division, referred to, for the sake of convenience, 
as M I I, co-ordinates the activities of the other eleven 
sections, six of which, M I 2, M I 5, M I 6, M I 7, M 
I 8, and M I 9, form the Positive Branch of the ser- 
vice, the Negative Branch consisting of M I 3, M I 4, 
M 1 10, M I II, and M I 13. The Second Section (M I 
2) is divided in turn into five subsections, four of which 
— Combat, Political, Economic, and Psychologic — de- 
vote themselves to the collation of information, the 
maintenance of the "Current Estimate," of which more 
hereafter, and the furnishing of special reports. An- 
other subsection deals with the preparation of military 
monographs. M I 5 collects information for the use of 
the Positive Branch and supervises the military atta- 
ches. M 1 6 concerns itself with the translation of docu- 
ments for all branches of the War Department. M I 7 
has charge of all maps and photographs, one of its sub- 
sections devoting itself to map construction and an- 
other having the custody of the War Department map 
collection. To M I 8 is intrusted the solution of codes 
and ciphers, the study of shorthand systems, encoding 
and decoding, the compilation of codes, and the main- 
tenance of a laboratory for the detection of invisible 
inks. M I 9 has supervision of the training of intelli- 
gence officers and men for work in the field. Turning 
to the Negative Branch of the division, M 1 3 is charged 



"M. I." 335 

with counter-espionage within the military establish- 
ment, together with collateral activities directly affect- 
ing' the army. The eleven subsections of M I 3 deal 
with such diverse subjects as the preparation of bul- 
letins, summaries, and surveys; and of instructions for 
intelligence officers, counter-espionage in prison camps, 
disciplinary barracks, the District of Columbia, the 
various branches of the Staff and Line, and among con- 
scientious objectors, and the investigation of applicants 
for commissions. M I 4 conducts counter-espionage 
outside the military service in the United States and 
abroad, with particular reference to sabotage and the 
protection of plants and means of communication, its 
activities covering nearly the entire world. M I 10 
is charged with the censorship of letters, books, news- 
papers, and periodicals, telegraphs and telephones, and 
radiophotographs and motion-pictures, and with a 
general supervision of the foreign-language press. 
MI II passes on passport applications and, in co- 
operation with certain other bureaus, has charge of 
port control. MI 13 is the Graft and Fraud Section, 
its work being principally concerned with criminal ac- 
tivities which may affect the army. The present Mo- 
rale Branch of the General Staff consists, as its name 
indicates, in maintaining the morale of the army, which 
includes the encouragement and supervision of soldier 
publications, military advertising, camp-posters, and 
the treatment of the foreign-speaking and negro soldier 
problems originated as the Military Morale Section 
of Military Intelligence. 

M I 2, as I have already explained, is that section 



336 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

of the Military Intelligence Division whose duty is to 
coUect, collate, and distribute foreign intelligence, its 
Combat Subsection being charged with the prepara- 
tion, maintenance, and dissemination of combat and 
military information on all countries. The work of the 
subsection is classified as "active," "static," and "en- 
cyclopedic." The "active" work consisted, during the 
war, of the preparation of material for the Daily Sum- 
mary and the Weekly Summary, and of material for 
transmission to other governmental departments; the 
preparation of Front Summaries and Strength Sum- 
maries; the transmission of a special weekly report to 
the American Expeditionary Forces in Siberia; the 
establishment and maintenance of line-maps of the 
various active fronts in the offices of the Chief of Staff, 
the Secretary of State, the War Council, the War Col- 
lege, and in the House of Representatives. In addi- 
tion this subsection was charged with the preparation 
of a weekly resume of the situation on all fronts to be 
presented to the heads of the several army bureaus, of 
the industrial bureaus, and the military committees 
of the Senate and the House. The "static" work con- 
sisted in keeping up to date the combat portion of the 
Current Estimate of the Strategic Situation, where was 
presented in concise form a wealth of combat, eco- 
nomic, ethnic, political, and psychologic information 
for ready reference by the Chief of Staff and other 
general officers who were compelled to keep their 
fingers constantly on the pulse of the enemy and Allied 
nations. The "encyclopedic" work consisted of the 
compilation of military and combat information of a 
permanent character. 



"M. I." 337 

During the war there were few more interesting 
places in Washington — and none, perhaps, more diffi- 
cult to obtain access to — than the map-room of the 
Military Intelligence Division. On its walls were dis- 
played every conceivable sort of map and diagrams 
depicting the movements of the armies on the various 
fronts. Not only were there large-scale maps of the 
European fronts on which our troops were fighting, 
but there were likewise maps on which rows of tiny 
colored flags indicated the positions of the opposing 
forces in Russia, Siberia, Macedonia, Mesopotamia, 
Palestine, China, German East Africa, German South- 
west Africa, and the Cameroons. These maps recorded, 
not only from day to day, but frequently from hour to 
hour, the advance or retreat of the lines on the various 
fronts, besides representing in graphic form the loca- 
tion of the enemy forces and indicating any economic 
conditions which were of particular interest at the 
moment. Thanks to the completeness of our informa- 
tion and the speed with which it was transmitted from 
the battle-fronts to Washington, the Director of Mili- 
tary Intelligence could sit in his map-room and follow 
the progress of a great battle on the Western Front as 
readily as the crowd in front of a newspaper office can 
follow a battle on a baseball diamond by means of the 
automatic score-board. 

In addition to the unceasing care and study neces- 
sary for keeping the maps of the various fronts up to 
the minute, and for anticipating events so that maps 
which might be needed in the near future would be 
ready, as, for example, when we first contemplated 



338 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

sending an expedition to Italy or when we learned that 
the British were preparing to invade Palestine, the 
staff of the map-room had many other duties. It veri- 
fied every name which occurred in the cables which 
were constantly being received from every corner of 
the globe (and if you have ever seen what a cable 
operator can do to geographical names you will appre- 
ciate how far from a sinecure this task was); it an- 
swered periodic letters from the Custodian of Ahen 
Property requesting information as to the situation 
and possession of various enemy-owned estates, and 
it dealt with demands for every conceivable sort of 
information from every conceivable quarter. For ex- 
ample, the National Geographic Society asked for the 
boundaries of the Ukraine, which the society's geo- 
graphic experts had been unable to determine them- 
selves; the Naval Intelligence Division inquired about 
maps of northern France and where it could obtain 
them; the Shipping Board wanted information re- 
garding French coastwise services. When the Siberian 
Expeditionary Force was being organized it became 
imperative that its commander should have an English 
map of the Trans-Siberian Railway. No such map 
had ever been made, but by a stupendous effort the 
officers of the subsection succeeded in translating three 
sections of the available Russian map. The other sec- 
tions were translated by the War College, and the 
whole was reproduced by the Military Intelligence 
Printing-Office. The work was, of course, hastily done, 
and later had to be revised, but for the moment it 
served its purpose well, and the Expeditionary Force 



"M. L» 339 

was able to take with it the only complete map of that 
system in English in existence. 

In addition to the great number of combat, stra- 
tegic, and physical maps covering the belligerent coun- 
tries and the various theatres of war, complete sets of 
military maps of the neutral nations were also kept 
available, for there was never any certainty as to how 
far the conflagration might extend. While hostilities 
were in progress the subsection responded to a con- 
stant stream of demands for estimates of the military 
situation, of the enemy's strength and resources, and 
for forecasts of his plans. An enormous amount of 
information relative to German and Austrian muni- 
tions, tanks, gas, aircraft, artillery, and infantry equip- 
ment was also codified and distributed in pamphlet 
form to those branches of the War Department par- 
ticularly concerned. Statistical reports, showing, for 
example, the percentage of French and British officers 
wounded and killed during stated periods, were of 
great assistance to the War Department in determining 
the number of officers to be assigned to the various 
draft contingents and for figuring the replacements 
which would be required. A report showing the hous- 
ing facilities for planes possessed by the French Air 
Service materially aided our own Department of Aero- 
nautics. The rate of pay for prisoners of war was 
fixed by the Adjutant-General's Department with the 
aid of tables furnished by this subsection. Nor did 
the work of the subsection end with the signing of the 
Armistice. If anything, it increased, for it was called 
upon to furnish all sorts of highly technical informa- 



340 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

tion for the use of the peace delegates. The most in- 
teresting and important data thus suppHed was a 
translation, with copious notes, of a Russian document 
describing in great detail the growth of the movement 
for the political independence of Siberia, a complete 
plan for the organization of voting districts, the com- 
position of scores of territorial councils and commis- 
sions, and the effect on political life in Siberia of the 
revolutions in European Russia. 

Long before the entry of the United States into 
the war it was recognized that the struggle for the 
control of raw materials was fully as important a factor 
in the great conflict as the struggle of the armies them- 
selves, and that the food supply exercised a greater 
effect on the morale of a nation than its casualties on 
the battle-field. Other factors which, it was realized, 
had to be taken into consideration in estimating the 
fighting ability and staying powers of a nation were 
labor conditions, finance, shipping and ship-building, 
all of which bear an intimate relation to the production 
of munitions and essential supplies. There existed 
government agencies, such as the Department of Com- 
merce and Labor and the Department of Agriculture, as 
well as many others born of the emergency, that were 
organized for the purpose of collecting data on all these 
subjects, but the results of their activities were not 
readily available for the purpose of the General Staff. 
As a consequence the need arose for a section of the 
Military Intelligence Division to gather, collate, and 
co-ordinate such economic information, and, in partic- 
ular, to interpret it from the military standpoint. The 



"M. I." 341 

Economic Subsection of the Positive Branch was 
created, therefore, to supply this need. 

The chief, and indeed the most important, function 
of the subsection was the compilation and the con- 
stant revision — based on the latest and most accurate 
data obtainable — of the economic portion of the Cur- 
rent Estimate of the Strategic Situation. Dealing as it 
did with vital economic conditions in all the countries 
of the world, it enabled the high command of the A. E. 
F. and the other organizations, both military and civil, 
to whom it was distributed, to keep in constant and 
intimate touch with the economic situation through- 
out the world. This work constituted, in fact, an 
up-to-the-minute encyclopedia of the most vital eco- 
nomic factors as they related to the strategic situation. 
The I. W. W. troubles in the spruce forests of the 
Northwest, the spread of boll-weevil in the cotton- 
growing districts of the South and of hoof-and-mouth 
disease on the Texas cattle-ranges, riots in Korea, 
revolutions in Russia, the assassination of a dictator 
in a Central American republic, a shortage of the 
Brazilian coffee crop, a change of government in Chile, 
a textile strike in Lowell, Mass., the price of bread in 
Bavaria, the increased use of paper clothing and leather 
substitutes in Prussia, the speech of a Socialist deputy 
in Paris, all were carefully weighed and given due con- 
sideration, the conclusions thus arrived at, when con- 
densed and put into graphic form, enabling the military 
chiefs in Washington to gauge with amazing accuracy 
the economic conditions throughout the world and to 
forecast the effect which they might be expected to 
have on the fighting armies. 



342 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

Commencing early in 1918, the subsection con- 
tributed to the confidential Weekly Intelligence Sum- 
mary specially written articles dealing with particular 
phases of the economic situation in various countries, 
such as " Germany^ s Raw Materials, ^^ "The Food Sup- 
plies of Germany, ^^ " Turkish Finances,^' and the like. 
These articles, which were frequently accompanied by 
specially prepared maps, tables, and diagrams, were 
all of a confidential nature, and were of great impor- 
tance to a complete understanding of the strategic 
situation and its constantly shifting phases. The sign- 
ing of the Armistice naturally brought about a sudden 
change in the nature of the subsection's work, its 
articles becoming more monographic in character and 
dealing with conditions from all points of view but 
with particular reference to the future. Such articles 
included " The Coal Situation in Germany,^' which was 
a detailed account of Germany's use of the c^al-fields 
which she occupied during the war; " The Left Bank of 
the RJtine,'^ being a comprehensive study of this terri- 
tory from the view-point of the effect which its neutrali- 
zation would have on the future of Europe; "Eco- 
nomic Resources of Czechoslovakia,^' with a valuable 
map of railroads and mineral deposits in that newly 
born nation; "Palestine," with an account of the re- 
sources, railroads, and prospects of the "State of Zion"; 
"Baltic Ports,'' sl monograph which showed the neces- 
sity of developing these ports and their hinterlands for 
the development of Russia. Upon the despatch of the 
American expedition to Siberia, the Economic Sub- 
section produced a weekly economic report on Russia, 



"M. I." 343 

with particular reference to the Asiatic territories, 
which was regularly forwarded to the commander of 
the expedition at Vladivostok. There were also pre- 
pared for the use of our forces in Siberia monographs 
on the food and raw-material resources, the communi- 
cations, the industries, and the finances of Russia, 
these proving of enormous value to the staff of the ex- 
pedition, which was operating in a region of which 
next to nothing was known save by a handful of scien- 
tists and explorers. Among the countless other reports 
prepared by the subsection perhaps the most important 
was the one on the fortifications and the territory sur- 
rounding the great German stronghold of Metz, which, 
had the war continued, would have been attacked by 
our forces. The completeness and exactitude of the 
information contained in this report, which was veri- 
fied by persons familiar with the fortress and its en- 
virons, would, I imagine, have given the chiefs of the 
German Intelligence Bureau some very uncomforta- 
ble nights, had they known of its existence. 

Now, though the non-military person may not have 
realized it, an exceedingly important factor in the suc- 
cessful conduct of operations is an adequate supply of 
up-to-date geographical monographs and handbooks, 
describing in completest detail the regions where the 
operations are taking place. Imagine, for example, 
how much difficulty you would experience and how 
little information you would obtain if you were to visit 
the galleries of the Vatican, the museums of Florence, 
or the churches of Venice without a guide-book. As 
few of the statues and pictures are labelled, you could 



344 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

only hazard a guess as to what you were seeing; you 
would not know where to go next or how to get there. 
The same thing holds almost equally true of armies. 
Land an expeditionary force in Patagonia, let us say, 
and imagine how helpless it would be if it had no 
accurate and detailed information as to the topog- 
raphy of the country, the size and locations of the 
towns and villages, the nature of the crops, and the cus- 
toms of the natives. To fill this urgent need there was 
created the Military Monograph Subsection. The 
gradual evolution in the methods of this subsection 
may be summed up by saying that stiff official letters, 
the very tone of which was about as reassuring to the 
recipient as a court summons, have given place to in- 
formal, friendly communications which immediately 
create a bond of personal sympathy between the In- 
telligence Division and the person from whom informa- 
tion is desired; the questionnaires sent out by the sub- 
section to those believed to have special knowledge 
of certain regions have dwindled from ponderous and 
forbidding volumes, the mere labor involved in an- 
swering which was appalling, to single pages of easily 
comprehended questions; and sets of stereotyped queries 
have, wherever possible, been replaced by intimate 
personal interviews. In other words, letters which 
addressed the recipient as "Sir" were so humanized 
that, when the war ended, they frequently began 
"Dear Bill." 

The most important work of the Military Mono- 
graph Subsection was the preparation of military hand- 
books which described, with almost incredible wealth 



"M. I." 345 

of detail, the regions in which our forces were operating 
or in which they might operate at some future time, 
the volumes being by no means confined to Europe 
and Asiatic Russia. The method followed in the prep- 
aration of these small, pocket-sized, linen-covered vol- 
umes was as follows: From standard sources, such as 
Baedeker's and Murray's guides, the best possible de- 
scription of a given region or route is compiled, or, 
should guide-books on the region in question be un- 
obtainable, an account is obtained from some experi- 
enced and rehable traveller. This skeleton is then 
enlarged, improved, and brought up to date by the 
careful perusal of consular and other reports and of 
all sorts of confidential documents issued by our own 
and other governments, and by reference to reliable 
books of travel. An even more fruitful method of 
obtaining new and valuable information is through 
interviews with travellers, explorers, mining engi- 
neers, consuls, commercial travellers, sea-captains, 
and others who have had opportunities to familiarize 
themselves with the regions about which information 
is desired. If these men were asked to sit down and 
dictate accounts of their observations, the results would 
probably, in nine cases out of ten, prove highly un- 
satisfactory, but if a written account of the region 
under discussion is given them, it invariably acts as a 
great stimulus to their memories. Though a man may 
not be able to write as good an account from first-hand 
knowledge as the intelligence ofiicer has prepared from 
material obtained in a library, he is easily able to point 
out errors, to suggest additions, and in other ways to 



346 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

improve the version placed before him. The last and 
potentially the most valuable of the methods used in 
gathering information for these handbooks is the 
employment of the Military Intelligence Division's 
own agents, such as military attaches, diplomatic and 
consular officers, and other civilian agents who are 
sent to foreign countries with specific instructions as 
to the information which it is desired to obtain. I 
might add that this has shown itself to be the most 
satisfactory source of information for monographs and 
handbooks. It is no exaggeration to say that each of 
these handbooks — and already a score or more of them 
have been completed — represents the combined knowl- 
edge of from forty to a hundred people. 

The Siberian handbooks published by M. I. un- 
doubtedly present the fullest and most accurate date 
on routes of transportation in that country to be found 
anywhere save only in the archives of the Russian, 
Japanese, and German armies. The handbook en- 
titled Southwestern Russia contains minute descrip- 
tions of all the ports on the Black Sea from Varna, in 
Bulgaria, around to Batoum, in the Caucasus. It also 
contains such information as would be required by an 
expedition in regard to the selection of ports for the 
disembarkation of troops and supplies, the garrisoning 
of these ports, and their maintenance as bases for opera- 
tions in the interior. In August, 1918, when the Ameri- 
can Expeditionary Force was about to set sail for 
Vladivostok, the Military Monograph Subsection was 
suddenly called upon to furnish the staff of the expedi- 
tion with a handbook on eastern Siberia. Though 



"M. I." 347 

much of the necessary material was contained in docu- 
ments which had not yet been translated, and though 
there were available only a few persons who were in- 
timately acquainted with the region in question, the 
subsection, by placing its entire personnel at the task 
and by working eighteen hours a day, succeeded in 
producing a preliminary but really admirable little 
handbook which was mimeographed in time to go 
with the expedition. It is scarcely necessary to add 
that the preparation of these monographs demanded 
men of exceptional ability who possessed wide and 
intimate knowledge of the regions whereof they wrote. 
In order to provide such a corps of writers, commis- 
sions in the Military Intelligence Division were given 
to travellers, explorers, authors, scientists, archaeolo- 
gists, and others whose work or pleasure had acquainted 
them with the world's far places. 

The Propaganda Subsection of Military Intelli- 
gence was formed for the purpose of studying enemy 
propaganda, to combat it by means of suitable counter- 
propaganda, and to take steps for the dissemination in 
the enemy armies and enemy countries of positive prop- 
aganda of our own. Though propaganda, as used by 
the United States, was nothing but the truth, it had 
been so abused by the Central Powers as to have be- 
come almost a term of reproach, the American Govern- 
ment steadily opposing its use — at least under that 
name — during the earlier months of the war. German 
propaganda had, indeed, achieved such an unenviable 
name that it was found advisable, in the spring of 1918, 
to change the name of this branch to "Psychologic 



348 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

Subsection." Misleading and frequently flagrantly- 
untruthful though their propaganda was, the Central 
Powers had made use of it with such marked success, 
particularly in Italy — for the disaster at Caporetto was 
primarily due to Austrian propaganda introduced into 
the Italian lines — that our government was reluctantly 
compelled to recognize its efficacy and to initiate propa- 
ganda of its own, this delicate and highly psychological 
work being intrusted to a civilian organization — the 
Committee on Public Information. Despite the vast 
amount of publicity which has been given to the work 
of Mr. Creel's organization, truth compels me to assert 
that it was very far from being the success which the 
public has been led to believe. Memorandums con- 
cerning the foreign situation, together with comments 
and suggestions, were sent almost daily by Military 
Intelligence to the committee, thus giving the civilian 
organization the military point of view and bringing 
to its attention urgent calls for American propaganda 
made by its representatives in many parts of the world. 
This should have been of great value to the committee, 
since through its attaches, agents, and other sources. 
Military Intelligence was able to obtain a vast amount 
of information about enemy propaganda and morale 
which would not otherwise have been accessible to 
Mr. Creel's organization. Although the committee 
agreed in general with the Intelligence Division as to 
the scope of our propaganda, lack of funds and of ex- 
perienced personnel made it unable to act, in the 
majority of cases, on the information thus given. 
Incredible as it may seem, in view of the immense im- 



"M. L" 349 

portance attached to the use of propaganda by other 
nations, it was not until after the Armistice had been 
signed that the army was formally authorized to make 
use of this potent weapon. I mention this because it 
illustrates how difficult it is to obtain a satisfactory 
liaison between two such bodies as the Military In- 
teUigence Division and the Committee on Public In- 
formation, whose respective activities were based on 
entirely dissimilar foundations, and who carried on 
their work along entirely different lines. This is not 
saying, however, that the officers of the Psychologic 
Subsection attached to the expeditionary forces in 
France were idle all this time; on the contrary, they 
succeeded in getting three million leaflets over the 
lines. 

Early in the spring of 1918 Military Intelligence 
recommended the immediate purchase of 6,500 balloons 
to be used for distributing great quantities of propa- 
ganda leaflets behind the German front. As, however, 
a sufficiently large appropriation could not be obtained, 
and as it was feared that there would not be an ade- 
quate supply of gas for the purpose in the A. E. F., it 
was finaUy decided to order only 500 balloons. Though 
delivery was promised by November i, they did not 
arrive then, nor were they received before the Armis- 
tice was signed, such few balloons as were used by the 
Propaganda Section of the A. E. F. being British ones. 
These were paper affairs, about nine feet long and 
carrying four pounds of leaflets strung on a slow- 
burning 1 2 -inch fuse in such a manner that they were 
dropped in small bunches, thus securing a wide area 



350 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

of distribution. But bad weather, the shortage of 
hydrogen-gas, the difficulties in transporting the gas- 
cylinders, and the rapid changes in the battle-line 
combined to make the number of balloons actually 
despatched very small. Great expectations were based, 
however, on the balloon campaign which was planned 
for the winter of 1918-1919 against interior Germany, 
particularly the Rhine towns. A large number of 
leaflets were also distributed by American aviators, 
who, taking their lives in their hands, frequently flew 
so low that they could see the Germans picking up the 
literature which came fluttering down on them from 
the skies. 

In order to intelligently distribute propaganda 
by balloon, it was first of all necessary to ascertain the 
actual state of the enemy's morale, which was prin- 
cipally done by questioning prisoners. The ofiicers in 
charge of the work — all of whom possessed, of course, 
a fluent knowledge of German — after carefully study- 
ing the daily intelligence reports at General Head- 
quarters, would visit the war-cages near Toul and 
Souilly and hold long interviews with prisoners of all 
ranks and from all parts of the empire. By this 
means it was possible to gauge with a considerable de- 
gree of accuracy the existing conditions beyond the 
Rhine and the degree of importance which various sec- 
tions of the German people attached to America's 
entry into the war. Arguments which had been sug- 
gested as suitable for propaganda use were tried out 
on the prisoners and their effect noted. Specimens of 
Allied propaganda were discussed with them and they 



"M. I.'' 351 

were asked to give their opinions of it. A sufficient 
knowledge was thus gained of the Teutons' mental 
processes to give the officers of the Propaganda Sec- 
tion a fairly accurate idea of the sort of arguments 
which would make the strongest appeal. The text of 
the proposed literature was then prepared and, after 
being approved by General Headquarters, was printed 
in Paris, the leaflets being sent to the field-stations 
which the Propaganda Section had established at 
Bar-le-Duc and Toul. As a result of the close liaison 
maintained with the Air Service, leaflets were sent to 
the various flying-fields for distribution by airplane, 
careful records being kept of the areas thus covered. 

Almost from the start the liveliest interest was 
shown and the heartiest co-operation afforded by all 
branches of the army concerned. The Meteorological 
Section of the Signal Corps carried on an elaborate 
series of experiments to determine the rate of ascension 
of the various types of balloons. The G-2's of many 
corps and divisions constantly sent in requests for 
propaganda and offered many suggestions. And the 
aviators, who were, after all, the ones most directly 
concerned, showed not the slightest hesitation in under- 
taking the exceedingly dangerous work of distribution, 
for more than one German commander announced 
that he would execute any flyer captured in the act of 
distributing propagandist literature. In only one quar- 
ter was opposition encountered. That was where the 
out-of-date conviction was still held that "propaganda 
has no place during operations." 

Nearly a score of types of leaflets were distributed 



352 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

by airplane or balloon. Among the most successful was 
one known as the "Prisoner Leaflet," containing a trans- 
lation of an extract from the orders prescribing the 
treatment to be accorded by the A. E. F. to prisoners of 
war. Appended to it was a list of rations issued to the 
American soldier and prescribed for enemy prisoners. 
More than a million copies of this leaflet were sent 
over the enemy lines. The "Prisoner Post-Card" 
leaflet was a variation of the one just described, being 
printed in close imitation of the German Feldpostkarte. 
This was predicated on the idea that the first interest 
of the German soldier was solicitude for his family and 
that the Feldpostkarte form was one to which he was 
accustomed. A number of these were found on the 
persons of prisoners. Another leaflet had a picture 
of a file of soldiers rapidly increasing in size, thereby 
impressing even the most illiterate of the enemy with 
the amazing expansion of the American Army. Still 
another contained the German request for an armistice 
and President Wilson's reply. The principal reason 
for dropping these over the German troops was the 
behef, which proved to be well founded, that their full 
import, and indeed even their complete texts, had been 
kept from reaching the German soldier. In addition 
to the above, the Propaganda Section distributed some 
20,000 copies of a leaflet designed to appeal to those 
natives of Alsace-Lorraine serving in the German 
armies. 

The leaflets intended for the Alsace-Lorrainers 
were the work of Captain Osamm of the 4th Corps, 
and were part of a plan which was to culminate in a 



"M. I." 353 

venturesome attempt at fraternization. Captain 
Osamm was perfectly familiar with German Army 
organization and knew the names of hundreds of 
German officers and men in the 224th Division, which 
was largely recruited from the natives of Alsace- 
Lorraine. After the 224th had been all but snowed 
under by the leaflets, and after a sufficient time had 
elapsed for the arguments which they contained to 
penetrate the German mind, Captain Osamm planned 
to crawl out into No Man's Land, and when within 
speaking distance of the German patrols to call out 
the names of individuals in that division. He admitted 
that he expected to be met by a few bursts of machine- 
gun fire, but he was convinced that the patrols would 
eventually themselves come forward to meet him, 
whereupon, by a verbal reinforcement of the argu- 
ments contained in the leaflets, he expected to bring 
about wholesale desertions. He based his assumption 
that the enemy would respond to his summons, I 
imagine, on the British contention that all Germans 
had originally been waiters, and that, if one were to 
shout, "Hi, Fritz, bring me a beer!" they would re- 
spond from force of habit. The beginning of active 
operations abruptly halted this amazing performance, 
however, thereby deeply disappointing the adventurous 
captain. 

The speed with which events moved during the 
last few weeks of the war prevented the trial of a dis- 
tinctively American idea, known as The International 
Bulletin. This was to be issued in the form of a news- 
paper, printed in parallel columns of English and Ger- 



354 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

man, and distributed on both sides of the line. The 
intention was for the American forces to honestly 
share a newspaper with the Germans ! It was believed 
that the very frankness of such a proceeding would 
serve to diminish the suspicions of the enemy that aU 
leaflets which fell into their hands were "doctored." 
The bulletin, as planned, was to contain news items, 
chiefly concerning the A. E. F., maps, pictures, and 
cartoons, the intention being to distribute it in large 
numbers among our own troops as well as behind the 
enemy lines; then to collect the old copies from the 
Americans, together with any comments which the 
fun-loving Yanks may have written on the margins, 
and send them over to the Boche by balloon. 

What were the results of this propaganda offensive ? 
Making an estimate of how it affected the enemy is 
like reporting on the effects of artillery-fire or bombing 
raids, for they happened on the other side of the line, 
' ' where visibility was poor. ' ' Any one who has listened 
to the interrogation of German prisoners can hardly 
fail to have been struck by the wide variance in the 
replies given by soldiers from the same unit. Ques- 
tioned about the effect of a barrage, for example, one 
man would state that it destroyed the German wire, 
demohshed their trenches, and cut their communica- 
tions, and that he and his companions were demoralized 
and panic-stricken; while another prisoner, from the 
same company, perhaps, would defiantly insist that 
the Yankee shell did no great damage, that casualties 
were light, and that he never missed a meal or a night's 
sleep. Or, when interrogated in regard to the damage 



"M. L» 355 

caused by our bombing squadrons, one prisoner would 
insist that, beyond killing a cow and breaking a few 
windows, absolutely no harm was done, while another, 
visibly shaken by his experiences, would assert that 
all that remained of the town in which he was billeted 
was a hydrant and two paving-stones. German offi- 
cers, when questioned about the effect of our propa- 
ganda, invariably made the stock reply, "The men 
laughed at the leaflets," but the enemy privates gen- 
erally admitted that they read and believed the flug 
blatter. On the other hand, captured officers frequently 
complained about the depressing effect which the leaflets 
had on the morale of their men, while many privates 
stoutly denied having been influenced by propaganda, 
even when the much-thumbed leaflets were found on 
their persons. It must be remembered, however, that 
no soldier likes to attribute his defeat to pieces of paper; 
he prefers to blame it on lack of food, the enemy's over- 
whelming superiority of numbers, and to his prepon- 
derance of artillery and machine-guns. If a historian 
ever has an opportunity to delve into the files of the 
German Intelligence Bureau, however, I imagine that 
he will find ample evidence that the showers of leaflets 
faUing from the blue played no inconsiderable part in 
the coUapse of the German war-machine. But, what- 
ever the results of our efforts in this direction, as re- 
vealed by the light of history, the American people 
can be assured that never was a campaign of propa- 
ganda waged with such scrupulous regard for the truth. 
Though certain of our allies sent out material for dis- 
tribution over the enemy lines which took considerable 



356 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

liberties with the truth, to put it mildly, and though 
the French quite frankly made use of Bolshevistic 
arguments, appeals, and promises, the distribution of 
our own propaganda leaflets was delayed time after 
time in order that the General Staff might sift and 
weigh the statements which it contained until they 
contained nothing save sincerity and truth. 

In the weeks that followed Foch's great offensive 
in the summer of 1918, it became increasingly appar- 
ent to those who were in a position to judge, that Ger- 
man morale, both in the heart of the empire as well as 
at the front, was imperceptibly but none the less 
steadily deteriorating. No one realized the significance 
of this to the Allied cause better than the chief of the 
Psychologic Subsection, who determined to watch the 
progress of the movement, just as a physician watches 
the progress of a disease, and to indicate its trend by 
means of a chart, like those on which nurses record the 
variations in the pulse and temperature of their pa- 
tients. In pursuance of this plan, which was put into 
execution about the ist of September, 1918, a daily 
report was prepared which contained in brief form all 
news in any way relating to German morale which 
had come in from all sources during the preceding 
twenty-four hours. At the end of each week an in- 
terpretation of the drift of these news items was at- 
tempted in a weekly report. Using as a basis for its 
estimates material contained in these reports, supple- 
mented by information obtained from every source 
open to Military Intelligence, the subsection worked 
out its famous "Chart of German Civilian Morale,'^ 



"M. I." 357 

which, during the closing months of the war, occupied 
a conspicuous place on a wall of Secretary Baker's 
office. The chart was drawn on a sheet divided into 
cross-sections, each of which represented a day, while 
the heavy black line, writhing across the paper like a 
dying serpent, showed the wavering morale of Ger- 
many's civil population. Secondary lines depicted in 
graphic form the German military situation, the de- 
gree of political unity in Germany, the situation in 
Austria-Hungary, the state of the food supply in the 
Central Empires, and the U-boat sinkings. But it 
was, of course, the line indicating the state of civilian 
morale which most accurately gauged the situation. 
Starting in August, 19 14 (nearly three years before our 
entry into the war), at the top of the chart, the line 
runs almost straight until the battle of the Marne, 
when there is a sudden drop. It recovers, however, 
with the continuance of the German advance, declines 
during the winters of 1914-1915 and 1915-1916, only 
to ascend again with the coming of spring; falls sharply 
after the final reverse at Verdun, drops to a still lower 
level than before during the anxious winter of 191 7- 
19 18, rises almost to its highest peak during Hinden- 
burg's tremendous onset in the following spring; begins 
a gradual decline in ratio to the steady increase in the 
strength of the American armies, and finally, begin- 
ning with the defeat of the all-conquering Germans at 
Chateau-Thierry, goes plunging downward until, on 
November 11, 191 8, the line ends at the bottom of the 
chart in the abyss of national despair. 

Shortly after the Armistice, when the morale of 



358 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

Germany's civil population was no longer of any in- 
terest save to the Germans themselves, the symptoms 
of a new and even more alarming disorder became ap- 
parent to the specialists of the Psychologic Subsection, 
whereupon, in order to keep this new menace to the 
health of the world under observation, a new chart was 
started and a fresh series of reports were begun, the 
personnel of the section being instructed to immediately 
note all movements and manifestations likely to prove 
destructive of good order and stable government. On 
huge wall-maps of Europe and Asiatic Russia various 
kinds of disturbances or threatened disturbances — 
revolutions, mutinies, riots, racial and religious troubles, 
strikes, labor and political demonstrations — were in- 
dicated by pins of different colors: 

Red: Bolshevism, Syndicalist, or Socialist. 

Brown : Political revolution, counter-revolution, anti- 
Bolshevist or social disturbances. 

Blue: Industrial strikes. 

Green : Food riots, plundering, or difficult food situa- 
tion. 

White: Racial troubles. 

Black: Military mutiny. 

Yellow: Disease epidemic. 
Each day a report was made out, compiled from 
various sources, covering the subject of European dis- 
turbances, these reports being arranged geographically. 
Every Friday a weekly summary was prepared in num- 
bered paragraphs, condensing the daily reports and 
giving, if possible, an interpretation of the trend of un- 
rest during the preceding week. As the most threaten- 



-M. I." 359 

ing disturbances during the winter of 1918-1919 were 
of a Bolshevist nature, it was deemed advisable to 
issue a weekly report on the activities of Trotzky, 
Lenine & Co. and their followers. 

The Fifth Section of the Military Intelligence Divi- 
sion, known as M I 5, is charged with the duty of ob- 
taining positive intelligence, that is, of locating direct 
and indirect sources of information; of supervising 
military attaches, who, within the Hmits of their activi- 
ties, obtain essential information, and of forwarding 
this information to such sections of the InteUigence 
Division as may find it of value. Now I am perfectly 
aware that the army officers who are attached to the 
American embassies and legations in various foreign 
countries do not stand particularly high in the estima- 
tion of the American people. They are generally re- 
garded as men who have been selected for their wealth 
and social distinction rather than for their abilities as 
soldiers; who have had more experience in ballrooms 
than in bombarded cities, and are more successful in 
leading cotillions than at leading troops in battle. 
As a matter of fact, this estimate of our military at- 
taches is bitterly unjust. As showing the type of 
men who represented the army abroad, I might men- 
tion that our military attache in England during the 
early years of the Great War was Major- General George 
S. Squier (then a colonel), chief signal officer of the 
army and one of the foremost scientists in America, 
if not, indeed, in the world; our attache at Paris was 
Colonel Spencer S. Crosby, one of the most able engineer 
officers in the army; while at Berhn our military rep- 



36o THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

resentative was Major-General (then Colonel) Joseph 
A. Kuhn, who, after organizing, training, and com- 
manding in action the 79th Division, eventually rose 
to the command of an army corps. 

Everything considered, the American military 
attaches have done more valuable work and received 
less recognition for it than almost any class of officers 
that I know. They have been placed in the unenviable 
position of taking orders from two departments — War 
and State; they have been forced, by the very nature 
of their duties, to play the role of onlookers while their 
fellow officers were fighting, and they have repeatedly 
been accused of being spies. Though the duties of our 
attaches in the capitals of our allies have been largely 
ornamental during the war, owing to the fact that they 
were virtually superseded in their military functions 
by the various American military missions, their work 
in the neutral countries of Holland, Denmark, Norway, 
Sweden, Spain, and Switzerland was of enormous im- 
portance, for they provided Military Intelligence with 
its most reliable and important source of information. 
Those officers stationed at The Hague, Copenhagen, 
and Berne could look across the barbed wire, figura- 
tively speaking, and see for themselves what the enemy 
was doing. Through all sorts of agents — spies, smug- 
glers, deserters, refugees, business men whose affairs 
took them into the territory of the Central Powers, 
and returning travellers — they were able to keep their 
fingers constantly on the military and economic pulse 
of the enemy, and to report the information thus ob- 
tained to the A. E. F. and to Washington. It goes 



"M. I." 361 

without saying that this work called for the exercise 
of the highest degree of patience, resourcefulness, and 
tact, for they were always surrounded by German 
agents, and particularly in those countries where Ger- 
man sympathizers predominated, the slightest indis- 
cretion would have resulted in a demand for their re- 
call. No news that came out of Germany was too 
trivial to escape their attention. Every one who 
crossed the frontier, from Dutch and Danish bankers 
to German deserters, was adroitly questioned and cross- 
questioned by the attaches, certain of the information 
thus obtained exercising a profound effect on America's 
military policy. For example, our attache at The 
Hague was dining one evening with a Dutch banker 
who had just returned from a business trip to Germany. 
While chatting over the coffee and cigars the Hollander 
remarked that, though he had been the guest of a 
German nobleman of great wealth, he had not been 
quite as comfortable as on previous visits, owing to 
the absence of his host's butler. 

"Wliat has become of old Franz?" the Hollander 
had asked his host. "The place isn't the same with- 
out him." 

"He was callea to the colors last week," was the 
answer. 

"But surely he is too old for active service," the 
banker protested. " He must be nearer sixty than fifty; 
he is blind in one eye and he is crippled with rheuma- 
tism." 

"Ach, yes," admitted the German. "But what 
would you? The Fatherland has need of every man." 



362 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

This incident, related quite casually over a dinner- 
table, though trivial in itself, gave our military attach^ 
— and through him our Military Intelligence — an 
intimation of the enormous depletion of Germany's 
man-power. Taken in conjunction with similar re- 
ports from other sources, it convinced him that Ger- 
many was fast becoming desperately hard up for men. 

The attache in Switzerland, perusing, as was his 
custom, the current issues of the German newspapers, 
had his attention attracted by an advertisement, in- 
serted by a citizen of a south German city, offering to 
rent a pair of stout leather boots, in good condition, 
for six weeks for forty marks. Wlien the equivalent 
of ten dollars is demanded for the use of a pair of boots 
for six weeks, there is only one conclusion to be drawn. 
" Germany must be at the last gasp for leather," argued 
the attache, and he so informed Washington. His 
surmise proved perfectly correct. 

Our military representative at The Hague was 
materially aided in his quest for information by a 
former sergeant in the American Army, who, upon his 
discharge, had bought a small truck-farm in southern 
Holland, within a few rods of the frontier. His dwell- 
ing was a recognized rendezvous for smugglers and 
deserters, the old soldier sending reports of the im- 
mensely important information which he obtained 
from them to the attache at the capital as regularly as, 
when stationed at an army post in the Indian country, 
he turned in his company reports. 

All cable messages sent by the military attaches 
to the Military Intelligence Division habitually ended 



"M. L" 363 

with the sentence "Pershing informed," which signi- 
fied that the information had also been communicated 
to the Commander-in-Chief of the American Expedi- 
tionary Forces. Shortly after the arrival of the former 
Kaiser at Amerongen, the newspapers carried circum- 
stantial accounts of serious political unrest in Holland. 
In order to correct the impression thus created, the 
attache at The Hague, who was evidently blessed with 
a sense of humor, sent the following message to Wash- 
ington: 

^^ Everything quiet in Holland. The Kaiser is still 
with us. Pershing informed. God also.'' 

Outside of Tiflis, in the Caucasus, in whose bazaars 
eighty languages are commonly spoken, I suppose that 
the Sixth Section of Military Intelligence, familiarly 
referred to as M I 6, is the nearest modern equivalent 
to the Tower of Babel. This section is charged with 
translating into English books, periodicals, newspapers, 
pamphlets, posters, proclamations, army orders, war 
diaries, confidential reports. Heaven only knows what 
besides, which appear in pretty much every language 
under the sun. The translators at present employed 
in the section make translations from the French, 
Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Dutch, Dano- 
Norwegian, Russian, Swedish, Greek, and Icelandic. 
This comprises only a portion of the section's work, 
however, for it also makes translations from Rou- 
manian, Ukrainian, Czecho-Slovak, Serbo-Croatian, 
Slovenian, Albanian, Bulgarian, Polish, Lithuanian, 



364 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

Lettish, Finnish, Ladino (there's a strange one!), He- 
brew, Yiddish, Turkish, Armenian, Assyrian, Syriac, 
Arabic, Hindustani, BengaK, Chinese, Japanese, Choc- 
taw, and other North American Indian dialects, 
Samoan, a dialect of the Philippine Islands, and Es- 
peranto. By an ingenious system of filing and index- 
ing the information thus obtained, the section has 
become a sort of clearing-house for data gleaned from 
the foreign press. 

M I 8 is the Cable and Telegraph Section of Mili- 
tary Intelligence. A portion of its work consists in 
sending and receiving telegrams and cables between the 
division and its intelligence officers on duty outside of 
Washington, including the military attaches in foreign 
countries. By means of special wire connections, re- 
markably fast service has been provided, particularly 
with the most important centre, Paris, whence messages 
in plain text have been delivered in Washington four 
hours earlier by the clock than they were despatched, 
while code messages have been delivered at approxi- 
mately the same time by the clock that they were sent. 
As an illustration of the peculiar tricks played by the 
change in time, I might mention — though it has nothing 
on earth to do with the subject of Military Intelligence 
— that the news of the death of Queen Victoria was re- 
ceived in New York three and a half hours before the 
time at which she breathed her last ! 

By far the greater portion of the enormous amount 
of cable correspondence handled by this office has been 
in the form of code messages. Since the necessity for 
security has required that the code words of each mes- 



"M. I." 365 

sage be enciphered to prevent the possibiHty of the 
message being intercepted and read by the enemy, it 
has been necessary to subject each code message to 
two complete translations. It has also been the duty 
of this section, in order to insure secrecy and to secure 
economy in the transmission of messages, to prepare 
five code-books for publication. Few persons realize, 
I imagine, that the use of code by the Mihtary Intelli- 
gence Division, the Adjutant-General's Office, and 
other branches of the War Department, as well as by 
the American Expeditionary Forces, has resulted in a 
saving to the government of at least 50 per cent in the 
cost of telegraphic and cable communications. The 
use of the Geographical Code has brought about an 
even greater economy by eliminating the necessity of 
spelling out foreign place names. Though hundreds 
of plays, novels, and magazine stories have been based 
on the work of code and cipher experts in this and 
other countries, the writers have usually painted in 
too vivid colors the romantic side of the calling. 
Though code and cipher work is frequently productive 
of exciting and dramatic moments, it is usually the in- 
tellectual excitement of a chemist who, after weeks of 
laborious experiments, discovers a new reaction, rather 
than the physical thrill which a detective experiences 
when he discovers a clew to a crime. 

Because of the enormous number of foreign-born 
citizens who were brought into the army by the draft, 
or who entered it through the National Guard or as 
volunteers, the work of counter-espionage within the 



366 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

military establishment itself was of vital importance, 
for a single traitor in the expeditionary forces might 
well have turned victory into disaster. Had it not 
been for the vigilance and efficiency of the Third Sec- 
tion of Military Intelligence, which was charged with 
counter-espionage within the military establishment 
itself, our hastily recruited and somewhat loosely or- 
ganized armies would have afforded countless oppor- 
tunities for the operations of enemy agents. I can 
give no higher praise to the work of this section than 
to say that, though numerous enemy agents succeeded 
in gaining admission to the military service in the 
United States, they did not succeed in getting over- 
seas, where they might have done irreparable harm. 
So active were our intelligence officers, so carefully did 
they investigate the record of every man destined for 
service in France, that, of the two and a half million 
men in the A. E. F., not a single one, so far as I am 
aware, was convicted of espionage. 

Every military organization operating indepen- 
dently, from a division down to a quartermaster depot, 
possessed its own counter-espionage organization, built 
up within itself for its own protection but operating 
according to a general plan and reporting directly to 
the Military Intelligence Division in Washington. 
During the war there were over 400 intelligence offi- 
cers reporting to Military Intelligence, either directly 
or through department intelligence officers. In addi- 
tion to these, there were special intelligence officers at 
certain highly important points : New York, Hoboken, 
Philadelphia, Pittsburg, St. Louis, New Orleans, Seat- 



"M. I." 367 

tie, and San Juan, Porto Rico — and twenty-one district 
intelligence officers stationed in centres of somewhat 
less importance. The privilege of direct communication, 
granted by the Secretary of War, enabled the counter- 
espionage organization throughout the United States 
to be controlled and co-ordinated without interference 
by the normal military command, thereby insuring 
additional secrecy for its operations and eliminating 
the enormous amount of time and red tape involved 
in sending communications through the usual military 
channels. Each intelligence officer corresponded di- 
rectly and freely with every other intelligence officer, 
copies of such lateral communications being sent to 
Mihtary Intelligence, the files of M. I. thus becoming 
a great central reservoir for intelligence information of 
every sort. As a result of this organization, the Di- 
rector of Military Intelligence, sitting at his desk in 
Washington, was the centre of a vast network of intelli- 
gence officers and other agents which covered not only 
the whole of the United States but, indeed, the 
greater part of the world. 

The ever-present problem presented by counter- 
espionage work within the army was the determination 
of the loyalty of officers and men. Experience proved 
that the pro- German was almost certain to reveal 
himself sooner or later, or to be reported by some one 
who had known him, the loyal rank and file themselves 
constituting the most effective counter-espionage ser- 
vice of all. Investigations of men thus reported fre- 
quently showed, however, that, though the suspect 
might have been pro-German before our entrance into 



368 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

the war, he had been apparently loyal since. If he 
was an enlisted man it was usually deemed safe to put 
him with line troops and send him to the front, for, even 
were he to prove disloyal, his opportunities for acquiring 
important information were comparatively few, and his 
opportunities for transmitting such information to the 
enemy almost infinitesimal. In the case of an officer, 
however, the question took on a far graver aspect, 
and only after the most searching investigation was 
such a man permitted to go overseas. 

The activities of the men under investigation as- 
sumed many forms. First in importance, of course, 
though not in numbers, were those enemy agents who 
had entered the army for the express purpose of ac- 
quiring information for transmission to the enemy. 
These were, in plain language, spies, and had they been 
caught "with the goods," they would have been sub- 
ject to court martial and execution. In order to silence 
the countless stories and rumors which have been cir- 
culated, I will avail myself of this opportunity to state 
that not a single American soldier or civilian was exe- 
cuted for espionage during the entire course of the war. 
The bulk of the cases which were investigated concerned 
men who, because of their foreign birth, or antecedents, 
or sympathies, might have been willing to impart in- 
formation of military value to enemy agents. The 
most difficult class to deal with, however, was the man 
who was spreading stories, with or without thought as 
to their effect, which would tend to lower the morale of 
the army. The reports upon which investigations were 
initiated varied greatly in definiteness, ranging all the 



"M. I." 369 

way from specific statements as to a man's utterances 
or acts to a vague rumor that in such and such a place 
there was a man, name not given, who should be inves- 
tigated. It was the pohcy of the section, however, to 
pursue any clew, no matter how vague, until the guilt 
or innocence of the suspect was definitely established. 
Where the original information was anonymous, that 
point was always sharply emphasized, so that the sus- 
pect's reputation might not be injured should the alle- 
gations prove to be unfounded, for it was found that 
anonymous charges were very frequently made from 
motives of spite or revenge or because of some real or 
fancied injury. In such cases it was the policy of the 
section to push the investigation only far enough to 
show their character and then drop them promptly, 
without burdening the field intelligence officers or other 
investigating agencies with useless work. 

The converse of this policy was followed in cases 
where the charges appeared to be well grounded, the 
man then being kept under surveillance until some- 
thing, no matter what, was picked up which would 
place him where he could do no harm. 

One of the commonest problems was the one pre- 
sented by the officer of German extraction who had 
been born and bred amid Teutonic influences, and who 
was naturally pro- German in sympathy and utterances 
before the United States entered the war, but who had 
been guilty of no act or utterance since that date which 
could be construed as in any degree disloyal, and who, 
from a military point of view, was extremely efficient. 
Such cases, in the last analysis, always resolved them- 



370 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

selves into the question: "Is he fit to go across?" 
Each case was, of course, considered on its own merits. 
While it was obviously impossible to lay down a rule- 
of-thumb applicable to all, two considerations in the 
main governed the decision. In the first place, an 
effort was made to obtain the opinions of the officers 
serving with the man in question and to learn whether 
they would be satisfied to go into action against Ger- 
man troops with him. If his fellow officers felt that 
they could trust him under such circumstances, it was 
a fair judgment in his favor. The second considera- 
tion was to ascertain whether his name, lineage, or 
appearance would make him unacceptable to our 
French allies. If such were likely to be the case, in- 
ternational courtesy, if nothing else, made it inadvisa- 
ble to send him overseas. Surveillance of these men 
naturally was continued in France, but the Intelligence 
Division of the A. E. F., in reporting that such a case 
could be considered closed, frequently said in effect 
that any taint of disloyalty which might once have 
existed had been burned away by the fire of battle. 

The process of having an officer discharged from 
the army by authority of Paragraph 9, War Depart- 
ment Bulletin No. 32 ("The President is hereby au- 
thorized to discharge any officer from the office held 
by him under such appointment for any cause which, 
in the judgment of the President, would promote the 
public service"), was the easiest and most satisfactory 
manner of dealing with cases of individuals against 
whom it was impossible to obtain sufficient evidence 
for conviction by court martial but whose presence 



"M. I." 371 

in the army was regarded as constituting a menace 
to the national safety. This will explain in some 
measure, perhaps, the curt announcements which ap- 
peared from time to time during the course of the war 
in Army Orders: "Lieutenant (or Captain, or Colonel) 
So-and-So has been discharged for the good of the 
Service." The great drawback, however, to this 
method of ridding the army of undesirables was that 
it could not be applied to officers of the regular estab- 
lishment, as the terms of the Act restricted its applica- 
tion to Reserve officers and those holding commissions 
for the term of the emergency. The policy pursued 
by Military Intelligence in the cases of regular officers 
suspected of disloyalty — for all suspected officers were 
not confined to the National Army or the Reserve 
Corps — was to have them assigned to posts where 
their opportunities for mischief would be reduced to a 
minimum. An officer ordered to duty in the heart of 
Alaska, say, was considered about as safe, from the 
point of view of Military Intelligence, as though he 
were in a cell at Leavenworth. 

Among the nearly 700,000 men swept by the first 
draft into the cantonments to be fused into a national 
army were thousands upon thousands of men of alien 
birth, many of them but recently arrived in this coun- 
try and all but ignorant of its tongue. It speedily 
became apparent that the fusing process was failing 
to produce in many of these men, perhaps in the major- 
ity of them, the change necessary to make them into 
soldiers. Instead of melting and flowing like the rest 
of the metal from which was forged the weapon which 



372 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

halted the Huns at Chateau-Thierry and beat them 
back in the Argonne, these men of alien birth remained 
a hard, unyielding mass, not only obdurate in itself, 
but threatening to leave in the finished weapon flaws 
that would be fatal when it was subjected to the test 
of battle. By the fall of 191 7, therefore, the military 
authorities had awakened to a realization of the fact 
that they were confronted by a serious and diflicult 
problem — what to do with the foreign-speaking ele- 
ment of our new armies. 

These immigrants, particularly the more recent, 
tend to congregate in the industrial centres of the 
country, in New York*s teeming "East Side," in the 
mining regions of Pennsylvania, in the manufacturing 
cities of New England, and in the Pacific Northwest. 
Here they live in swarming communities, speaking 
their own languages, reading (if they can) their own 
newspapers, attending their own churches, their wants 
ministered to by their own doctors, lawyers, bankers, 
and tradesmen. From such colonies the drag-net of 
the draft drew into the army tens of thousands of 
foreign-speaking men. Here, then, was the first and 
greatest source of difficulty in transforming these afiens 
from many lands into American soldiers — ignorance of 
the English language. Unable to understand the or- 
ders which were given them, they were set down as 
stupid and surly, and through a lack of judgment in 
the selection of the commissioned and non-commis- 
sioned officers put in charge of them, they were fre- 
quently the victims of misunderstanding and ill- 
treatment. Four illustrations are typical of a hundred 



"M. I." 373 

or more similar incidents in the Depot Brigade at 
Camp Gordon: 

Private Sobolowski, failing to spell his name, was 
struck in the jaw by his sergeant, so successfully 
that the jaw was broken and a few teeth were 
knocked out. The private went to the hospital 
and the sergeant to the guard-house, pending 
court-martial proceedings. 

Private Pagarzelski replied to his corporal in 
Polish, which the corporal considered highly 
abusive. The private was court-martialled and 
sixty dollars of his pay was forfeited. As a 
consequence the man was not only unable to 
help his aged mother but was left without a 
penny for himself. 

Private Sznyder, being on guard duty, misunder- 
stood the orders repeated to him by the corporal 
of the guard, and naturally did not comply with 
them. As a result he was arrested and put in 
the guard-house, fifty-seven dollars being taken 
from him by a corporal, of which only thirty- 
five dollars was returned. The corporal took 
advantage of his ignorance of English to ap- 
propriate a part of the money. 

A Russian was arrested for evasion of military 
service. After he had spent six weeks in the 
guard-house it was discovered (through an in- 
terpreter) that the man was arrested before he 
had received notification of being drafted. 

From a counter-espionage point of view such con- 
ditions were distinctly dangerous. The foreign-speak- 



374 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

ing soldiers, if not actually affiliated with the enemy, 
were, because of their ignorance and credulity, es- 
pecially susceptible to the advances of enemy agents 
and propagandists. When herded together in a depot 
brigade, made surly by the inconsiderate treatment 
they received and chafing under the compulsion of 
being set at manual labor in this country when their 
ambition was to go overseas, they were potentially, if 
not actually, ripe for mischief. 

Early in 1918 Mr. D. Chauncey Brewer, of Boston, 
president of the North American Civic League for 
Immigrants, was appointed by the Secretary of War 
to take the situation in hand. Under his direction a 
corps of field agents commenced operations both in the 
camps and cantonments and in the large cities and 
industrial centres, collecting information about the 
non-English-speaking men taken by the draft. These 
agents, who were carefully picked men of foreign extrac- 
tion and generally linguists of ability, observed the 
general and special influences affecting the foreign-born 
groups and investigated propaganda, suspects, com- 
plaints regarding draft evasion, draft boards, soldiers' 
allotments, insurance, and the like. They reported on 
conditions existing in the camps from information con- 
tained in soldiers' letters, for many men who were pre- 
vented by their lack of knowledge of EngKsh or other 
reasons from complaining to their military superiors, 
would recite their troubles in their letters to the folks 
at home. These agents accounted in various ways for 
their presence in the camps, most of them announcing 
that they were working for the Associated Charities or 



"M. I." 375 

for the North American Civic League for Immigrants. 
They estabhshed connections with leaders of the foreign 
colonies in the larger cities as well as with the poor. 
The foreign-language press, its editors and its influence, 
good or bad, also demanded their attention. They 
reported loyal citizens of integrity and ability who 
were later induced by means of correspondence to vol- 
unteer for this kind of service and who could keep 
Military Intelligence informed on conditions in their 
respective cities when the agent had finished his work 
or found it advisable to withdraw. Thus was built up 
a large volunteer organization composed of loyal citi- 
zens of foreign birth or extraction, who kept the Intelli- 
gence Division advised of conditions among their re- 
spective groups or races, and to whom the division 
could apply for assistance or information in individual 
cases or localities. These volunteer assistants included 
men in all lines of business and in all professions. The 
Boards of Health of cities having large foreign-speaking 
populations vouched for loyal foreign-speaking doctors 
who, because of the peculiarly confidential relations 
they enjoyed with their patients, were able to obtain 
information of great value to the section. The same 
was true of clergymen of many denominations. The 
editors of foreign-language newspapers frequently ren- 
dered highly effective co-operation, and correspondence 
was started with a dozen or more school superinten- 
dents in the larger cities with a view to enlisting the 
aid of the high-school boys in promoting the morale of 
the foreign-speaking colonies. 

Reports received from Camp Gordon in April, 



376 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

191 8, indicated serious trouble with the unnaturalized 
Russians and Poles, and, in some instances, with the 
Italians, all of whom were perfectly willing to fight for 
the lands from which they came but not for this one. 
Camp Gordon was a replacement camp, and as such 
had become a dumping-ground for divisions having 
men that they wished to get rid of, a large proportion 
of whom were foreigners. Of the 1,500 men of all 
nationalities who were transferred to this camp by the 
82d Division on the ground of suspected disloyalty, 
nearly 1,000 did not speak Enghsh. In order to rem- 
edy this dangerous condition, a memorandum was 
drawn up by M I 3 and was adopted by the War 
Department. This memorandum recommended that 
foreign-speaking draftees not having sufficient knowl- 
edge of English to understand the commands be segre- 
gated by nationalities in companies, both the commis- 
sioned and non-commissioned officers of which should 
be of the same nationality as their men, or should at 
least be familiar with their language, habits, and psy- 
chology. In support of the plan the words of Napo- 
leon were quoted: 

"If I had enough humpbacks in the Army to 
make a regiment, enough Negroes to make a battalion, 
enough dumb men to make a company, I would so 
organize them. No stimulus is more potent than the 
pride of men who have a common bond either of race, 
nationality, color, or even affliction. Men thus put 
together want to show the rest of the Army their ex- 
treme capabiHty." 

The work at Camp Gordon was put in charge of an 



"M. I." 377 

officer of Military Intelligence, who had had consider- 
able experience in social-service work among the foreign- 
speaking soldiers at Camps Grant and Custer. Upon 
his arrival at Camp Gordon he found that those soldiers 
(most of them foreigners) who had been left behind 
when troops were sent overseas had been placed in the 
5th and loth Training Battalions of the Depot Brigade. 
Forty-one nationalities were represented in this group 
of foreigners, classified as Allied Aliens, Neutral Aliens, 
and Enemy Aliens, 80 per cent of them being Italians, 
Slavs, and Russian Jews. The officer immediately in- 
itiated a study of each nationality and of each indi- 
vidual, the process of personally interviewing each 
man, 976 in all, occupying two weeks. Thousands of 
questions and complaints were answered and explana- 
tions made to the men in their native tongue, every 
man being recorded and classified according to his 
nationality, loyalty, intellect, citizenship, and military 
fitness. This done, two companies were formed, one 
composed of Slavs — the majority of them Poles — and 
the other of Italians. Three officers of Polish extrac- 
tion and one of Russian were procured for the Slav 
company and two of Italian extraction for the Italian 
company. The first week of training and lectures on 
discipline resulted in an amazing impetus of spirit and 
enthusiasm. Between the Slavs and the Italians arose 
the keenest competition for proficiency in drill. So 
startling was the change that the battalion commander 
and the American officers in charge of the two compa- 
nies passed rapidly from discouragement and pessimism 
to extreme enthusiasm. An elaborate plan was worked 



378 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

out for giving the men a working knowledge of English 
and a series of lectures were given in their own tongues, 
thus acquainting them with the requirements necessary 
for service overseas. Special religious services were 
arranged for the Italians and the Slavs, their spiritual 
needs being ministered to by priests of their own faiths. 
The camp diet was modified in order to give them food 
which was racially acceptable. Social entertainments 
were planned, so that prominent citizens of Atlanta 
could meet the foreign-speaking soldiers and make 
them feel that they were as dear to the country whose 
imiform they were wearing as though they were Ameri- 
can-born. The immediate result of this interesting 
experiment was the conversion of potentially dangerous 
malcontents into loyal, enthusiastic, and efficient sol- 
diers. Furthermore, the reaction upon the families of 
the soldiers and upon the colonies from which they 
came was highly gratifying, for their letters from the 
men, filled with their suddenly awakened enthusiasm 
for army life and with glowing accounts of the kind- 
ness and consideration which were being shown them, 
did much to counteract any latent disloyalty among 
the foreign-speaking population. To each new group 
of foreigners who entered the battalion the question 
was put: "How many of you men are willing to go 
abroad and fight?" In most cases the affirmative re- 
sponses were pitifully few. In fact, the Slavs practi- 
cally all refused to put on identification tags, asserting 
that should they be sent abroad they would be as will- 
ing to help the Germans as the AUies. But when, 
after a few weeks' stay in the battalion, the question, 



"M. I." 379 

"How many of you men are willing to go abroad and 
fight?" was again put to them, the response was as 
remarkable as it was thrilling, for practically the 
whole battalion stepped forward as one man. Prop- 
erly treated, the metal had fused at last. They were 
all Americans now. 

So successful did the experiment prove at Camp 
Gordon that a few months later the same officer was 
ordered to introduce his plan at Camp Devens, where 
there were approximately 6,000 men who did not 
have sufficient knowledge of English to be effectively 
trained. In three days he, with proper assistance, 
personally examined upward of 2,000 men, and on 
the fourth day divided them into four companies, 
Company No. i consisting of 250 Slavs (three-fourths 
of them Poles), Company No. 2 of 230 Italians, Com- 
pany No. 3 of 200 Greeks and Albanians, and Company 
No. 4 of the same number of Armenians and Syrians. 
A number of non-commissioned officers who could 
speak the necessary languages were transferred from 
the depot brigade and assigned to assist in the training 
of the new companies. The results obtained were be- 
yond all expectations. The spirit and enthusiasm of 
the men advanced by leaps and bounds. They entered 
into competitive drills as enthusiastically as though 
they were schoolboys playing a game. The guard- 
house, which, until the introduction of the plan, 
had always been full of foreign-speaking soldiers, sud- 
denly became deserted. From being the worst organi- 
zation at the camp, the "Foreign Legion," as it was 
called, became the model battalion. 



38o THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

The plan, followed both at Camp Devens and 
Camp Gordon, of providing the foreign-speaking organi- 
zation with foreign-speaking non-commissioned officers 
of unquestioned loyalty served an additional purpose in 
that it provided the Intelligence Division with new 
and valuable sources of information, for the non-com- 
missioned officers, being familiar with the language, 
customs, and modes of thought of their men, could 
easily detect any undercurrent of disaffection or dis- 
loyalty. Their common speech would at once estab- 
lish a bond of sympathy that would be likely to disarm 
the suspicions of an enemy agent or sympathizer. 
Moreover, the speech and characteristics of peoples 
living in close proximity to each other, though divided 
by an international frontier, are usually so nearly iden- 
tical that no one can distinguish between them save a 
person who himself comes from that region. Only a 
man who had himself lived on the Russo- German 
frontier, for example, would be able to say with cer- 
tainty whether a certain soldier came from Russian, 
Austrian, or German Poland; from Galicia or Lithu- 
ania; from Transylvania, Besserabia, or the Ukraine. 
An incident which occurred at one of the camps illus- 
trates this principle as applied to the Oriental races. 
A civilian agent of the Military Intelligence Division, 
who was an Armenian, noticed that a soldier who 
claimed to be a Syrian refused to eat pork. Being 
perfectly familiar with both Turkish and Syrian cus- 
toms, and knowing that the Turks, who are Moham- 
medans, are forbidden to eat pork, while the Syrians, 
who are Christians, are not, the operative sharply 



"M. I." 381 

questioned the pretended Syrian, who at length con- 
fessed that he was a Turk, and, consequently, an 
enemy alien. Such a slight indication would have 
passed unnoticed save by one familiar with Oriental 
customs, and a dangerous enemy agent might thus 
have escaped detection. 

To M I 4 was intrusted the extremely important 
work of counter-espionage among the civilian popula- 
tion. It investigated the activities of the enemy in 
propaganda, in sabotage, and in the estabHshment of 
communications with the home country; it investigated 
such of his trade activities and financial transactions 
as might impede our successful prosecution of the war; 
it discovered enemy influences among political, racial, 
and religious groups and in labor organizations, and it 
watched persons throughout the nation who, though not 
associated with the enemy, were nevertheless engaged 
in pacifist, revolutionary, and similar activities which 
were likely to interfere with our military operations. 
The section operated through many agencies. As a 
branch of the War Department, it employed intelli- 
gence officers serving with troops in the various camps 
and cantonments, who furnished the section with 
much valuable information relative to civilian activi- 
ties which reacted upon the army. Similar informa- 
tion was furnished by the departmental intelligence 
officers, stationed at the headquarters of the several 
geographical departments of the army, and by the 
military attaches in foreign countries. The Depart- 
ment of Justice, the State Department, and the Office 
of Naval Intelligence also actively co-operated with 



382 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

the section. By the establishment of a system of 
counter-espionage in foreign countries the section suc- 
ceeded in frustrating many of the German plans at 
their source and in counteracting enemy propaganda 
which, had it gone unchecked, might have had the 
gravest results. The German method of organized 
propaganda was well illustrated by the operations of 
the Chilean- German League, which was founded in 
October, 1916, by Chileans of German descent, its 
membership including commercial agents, priests, pro- 
fessors, physicians, merchants, and school-teachers. 
In a circular dated Valparaiso, October 24, 191 7, and 
marked "Confidential," the management of the local 
branch of the league at Valparaiso announced a meet- 
ing to be held jointly with the representatives of all 
German societies of the city for the purpose of found- 
ing a propaganda committee. The necessity for start- 
ing a propaganda on a large scale was pointed out, 
and the main object of the league, that of urging the 
maintenance of neutrality by the Chilean Government, 
was described in detail. The importance to the Allies 
of the German ships in Chilean waters was also em- 
phasized, the circular saying, in part: ". . . if we suc- 
ceed in postponing the rupture of relations by this 
propaganda only for weeks, we have aided Germany 
and her allies to the extent of millions, harming the 
Allies at the same time by millions." Though the 
league succeeded in preventing Chile from joining 
the Allies, the vigilance and energy displayed by the 
agents of our counter-espionage service in that coun- 
try practically nullified the effects of the league's 
propaganda in South America. 



"M. I." 383 

From the beginning of the war until its end the 
American public was constantly thrilled by the sen- 
sational and usually highly circumstantial accounts 
which appeared in the press, particularly the Sunday 
supplements, of the operations of German secret agents 
in the United States. Every one, I suppose, has heard, 
in some one of its many versions, the story of the Ger- 
man spy who was shot in the telephone-booth of a 
New York hotel by a Secret Service operative while 
giving a confederate information relative to the sailing 
of American transports. Though I have heard that 
story related, with minutest detail, in clubs, over din- 
ner-tables, and in the smoking-compartments of Pull- 
mans, I never heard any one ask the quite obvious 
questions as to why it was necessary for the operative 
to shoot the spy instead of taking him alive, or how 
the confederate proposed to transmit the information 
to Germany. One picturesque version of the story 
laid the scene in a crowded New York Subway train, 
the Secret Service man having his automatic in his 
pocket and firing through the cloth of his coat. Then 
there was the equally sensational story of the Hoboken 
family in whose employ was a German spy disguised 
as a maid of all work. One day she mysteriously dis- 
appeared, and a few hours after her disappearance 
Secret Service agents called at the house and searched 
the belongings she had left behind her. Their search 
was rewarded by discovering, under a false bottom in 
her trunk, a complete set of the plans of the defenses 
of New York harbor. Variations of that tale placed 
its locale in Stamford, Conn., in Chittenango, N. Y,, 
in Newton Centre, Mass., in Key West, and in Los 



384 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

Angeles, while the papers discovered in the mysterious 
trunk ranged all the way from drawings of coast-defense 
guns to a copy of the German Naval Code. The same 
hysteria which led the public to accept these ridiculous 
concoctions at their face value, and to beg for more, 
caused them to suspect all sorts of well-known persons 
of being engaged in espionage activities — the general 
commanding a certain American division, a famous 
woman aviator, a still more famous prima donna, a 
Jewish banker noted for his philanthropies, the chan- 
cellor of a great university, and even the secretary to 
the President having been discovered — so the rumors 
had it — to be German spies. At one period of the 
war, indeed, it was popularly reported that spies were 
executed every morning at daybreak on Governor's 
Island. Now I dislike to destroy illusions and to spoil 
perfectly good stories, but the dictates of truth com- 
pel me to assert that not a single spy was executed on 
Governor's Island or anywhere else in the United 
States, though it is my personal opinion that a few 
such executions would have brought to an abrupt end 
the series of fires, explosions, strikes, and other cases 
of sabotage for which the agents of the Wilhelmstrasse 
were responsible. For stating this opinion, quite early 
in the war, at a dinner in Boston at which I was a 
speaker, I received a mild reprimand from the Ad- 
jutant-General of the Army. On the occasion in ques- 
tion I remarked, if I remember rightly, that I was 
convinced that the most effective method of dealing 
with spies was not to intern them but to inter them. 
And I am still of the same opinion. 



"M. L" 38s 

Though Germany had a number of secret agents 
operating in the United States — though not nearly 
as many as was generally supposed — the only one 
of them who measured up to the popular conception 
of a spy was a woman known as Madame de Victorica. 
In certain respects she came very near to meeting the 
specifications for an international adventuress as laid 
down in the mystery stories of Messrs. Chambers and 
Oppenheim. The results she obtained were, how- 
ever, distinctly disappointing — at least from the Wil- 
helmstrasse point of view. Her father was the Prus- 
sian general to whom Marshal Bazaine handed his 
sword at the surrender of Metz; her mother was a 
Prussian countess; her sister was married to a Prus- 
sian nobleman, and her brother was a Jesuit priest 
serving as a chaplain in the Austrian Army. Madame 
de Victorica has had three husbands — all South Amer- 
icans. Two died within a few months after marrying 
the handsome adventuress; the third was divorced. 
According to her confession, Madame de Victorica 
was trained in espionage work at the Naval Intel- 
ligence Bureau in Berlin and was sent to the United 
States by the authorities of the Wilhelmstrasse for 
the purposes of obtaining military and naval informa- 
tion, to foment labor troubles, to tamper with the 
Roman Catholic clergy, and to lay the plans for a re- 
bellion in Ireland more successful than the abortive 
one of 1916. She memorized a code before leaving 
Berlin. The secret ink in which her letters were writ- 
ten was given her at the Chemical Institute and was 
carried in two silk mufflers, the ink being obtained by 



386 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

saturating them in cold water and wringing them. 
Writing in this ink could be developed with iodine tab- 
lets, manufactured by a well-known firm of London 
chemists, dissolved in vinegar. Other messages were 
transmitted by means of pin-pricking certain letters in 
newspapers. Madame de Victorica was unquestion- 
ably a woman of considerable intelligence and social 
position; she had had some experience as a journalist, 
and was apparently credited by the Germans with 
quickness of wit and resourcefulness as an organizer. 
This reputation she only partly justified, however, for 
she talked indiscreetly on the steamer while coming 
over, wasted time and money after her arrival in New 
York in buying elaborate gowns, and was an inveterate 
user of drugs. As the result of converging lines of 
inquiry pursued by Military Intelligence and the De- 
partment of Justice, she was arrested, together with 
several of her confederates, in August, 1918. There 
you have a thumb-nail sketch, as it were, of the most 
dangerous German agent in America. She can thank 
her lucky stars that the Wilhelmstrasse sent her to 
the United States instead of to France or England, for 
had she been caught in either of those countries her 
career would have ended not between stone walls but 
between a stone wall and a firing-party. 

It is easy enough to understand, if not to sympa- 
thize, with the reasons which led Madame de Victorica 
to come to the United States in the capacity of a Ger- 
man spy, for she was, after all, German to the core, 
her relatives for generations before her having held 
high positions under the Prussian crown. But it is 



'^M. I." 3^7 

not easy, indeed it is almost impossible, for a loyal 
American to understand how men who were born and 
educated in the United States and who had a long line 
of American ancestors behind them, could sell their 
honor and their loyalty for German gold. It is, how- 
ever, a curious and regrettable fact that certain per- 
sons whose disloyalty was proved beyond the shadow 
of a doubt were purely American, so far as their birth 
and parentage were concerned, their only connections 
with Germany being financial ones. Of these I have 
particularly in mind three men, all, if I am not mis- 
taken, possessing university educations, who were jour- 
nalists and correspondents of considerable standing 
until the discovery of their pro-German activities 
blasted their reputations and plunged them into obliv- 
ion. One of them — a correspondent who had seen 
service in several wars — was caught in the act of 
carrying messages from the Austrian Ambassador in 
Washington to Berlin. He was arrested by British 
intelligence officers and returned to the United States. 
His passport was taken from him, and those w^ho 
were once his friends now pass him by without speak- 
ing. Another of these gentry succeeded, in spite of 
his German sympathies and affiliations, in obtaining 
admission to a training-camp, being given a commis- 
sion and sent to France. But, as the result of repre- 
sentations made by the Intelligence Division, which 
was thoroughly familiar with his career, he was 
brought back to the United States, subjected to an 
official interrogation, confessed, and, though he made 
desperate efforts to have the President accept his resig- 



388 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

nation, was dismissed from the army "for the good of 
the service." The third of this precious trio went to 
Germany as a correspondent, at once constituted 
himself a champion of everything German, savagely 
attacked the land of his birth, and, upon the fall of 
the Kaiser, fled to Sweden, where, so far as I am aware, 
he is still living in exile, a real "Man Without a Coun- 
try." 

The great organization built up by Von Papen 
and his fellows for purposes of sabotage made it im- 
perative, upon the entry of the United States into the 
war, that a system should immediately be devised for 
the protection of those plants and workers engaged in 
the manufacture of munitions. With the declaration 
of war the United States became, almost overnight, 
the greatest manufacturer of war materials in the 
world. In every city in the land factories producing 
the tools of the fighter's trade were running night and 
day, and other factories, hundreds of them, began to 
spring up as though at the wave of a magician's wand. 
The nation was a-hum with feverish industry from 
ocean to ocean. But of what avail was this tremen- 
dous wave of manufacturing activity, of what use the 
expenditure of billions in the erection and operation 
of plants and factories, unless those plants and fac- 
tories were afforded protection against fire and the 
acts of enemy agents? To fill this need there was 
organized, in July, 191 7, the Plant Protection Section 
of the Military Intelligence Division. 

The system of plant protection provided, first of 
aU, for a physical examination of the munition facto- 



''M. L" 389 

ries of the country with a view to minimizing the 
danger of their destruction by fire. Basing their plans 
on the estimates of the insurance companies that 85 
per cent of all fires are the result of carelessness, the 
inspectors sent out by the section insisted, as a measure 
essential to the success of their work, on a systematic 
and wholesale house-cleaning, the wave of cleanliness 
which struck those American plants engaged in the 
manufacture of munitions during the first year of the 
war being directly traceable to the orders of the Plant 
Protection Section. The oflScers of the section next 
turned their attention to measures for the prevention of 
sabotage and the fomentation of labor troubles by ene- 
my agents, which was accomplished by the introduction 
of what was known as the "interior organization sys- 
tem." This consisted in the establishment within the 
plant of a complete espionage system, composed of old 
and trusted employees, who worked as Secret Service 
agents, and were unknown to one another. In cases 
where it was deemed necessary, this body was re- 
enforced by trained and experienced operatives from 
the Plant Protection Section, who usually obtained 
positions as workmen in the plant without the knowl- 
edge of the management. By this means the perpe- 
trators of many cases of sabotage were discovered, in- 
cipient strikes were prevented, agitators and profes- 
sional trouble-makers were kept under surveillance, 
and, if their actions warranted, were placed under 
arrest, and an unceasing watch kept on the movements 
of enemy agents. The campaign of sabotage and de- 
struction which German sympathizers had been con- 



390 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

ducting almost unchecked was abruptly halted, for so 
wide- spread and efficient was the section's organization 
that the enemy agent was constantly haunted by the 
fear that his most trusted confederate might be a 
secret operative who was watching his every action. 
Though it never had more than 400 active agents (this 
does not include, of course, the enormous number of 
volunteer operatives recruited from the workers them- 
selves), the section extended its protection to more 
than 37,000 manufacturing plants, and, during the 
period of its war-time operations, made upward of 
270,000 recommendations for arrests, investigations, 
and prosecutions, or for further plant protection. 

Agents of the Plant Protection Section succeeded 
in gaining admission to the innermost councils of the 
I. W. W. and kindred organizations, and, by thus 
obtaining advance notice of any contemplated action, 
were successful in averting strikes and labor troubles 
which would have caused the loss of millions of dol- 
lars, and, through halting the flow of munitions to the 
front, the loss of thousands of American lives. The 
success of the section in this phase of its work was 
due, first, as I have already explained, to its ability to 
obtain advance information of impending trouble, and, 
secondly, to the fact that the agents of the section 
were in a position to handle a delicate labor situation 
in an absolutely impartial manner, taking no sides and 
inspiring the confidence of both employers and em- 
ployees. Thus it came about that the section was 
frequently able to compose differences between capital 
And labor when other arbitrators, who did not so com- 



"M. I." 391 

pletely hold the confidence of both parties to the dis- 
pute, failed. 

After the Armistice the activities of the section 
consisted, in the main, in protecting the government 
against fraudulent claims presented by manufacturers 
and in guarding the great plants and warehouses which 
were abandoned upon the cancellation of war contracts. 
In one case the section obtained and prepared evidence 
for a grand jury which so conclusively showed fraud 
on the part of certain manufacturers holding govern- 
ment contracts, that another concern, which had 
already presented claims amounting to $600,000, upon 
learning that they were being investigated by agents 
of the section, hurriedly withdrew them. Another 
example of the efficiency which characterized the work 
of the section is illustrated by the case of a concern 
engaged in the manufacture of shells, the evidence 
presented by the section resulting in the indictment 
of the president and ten other officials of the company 
for submitting shells to the government for inspection 
imder fraudulent circumstances. 

The difficult, perplexing, and highly delicate work 
connected with the various phases of the censorship 
was intrusted to the Tenth Section of Military Intelli- 
gence, a number of subsections being estabHshed for 
the censorship of mail matter, telegraphs and tele- 
phones, radio, books and permanent literature, foreign- 
language newspapers, religious and pacifist publica- 
tions, photographs, motion-pictures, and mail to or 
from prisoners of war. 



392 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

To assume censorship of the mails was a new- 
experience to our government, for it was in direct 
opposition to American customs and traditions and 
was extremely repugnant to a large and influential sec- 
tion of the American people. It was undertaken, in- 
deed, only after its necessity had been urgently and 
repeatedly emphasized by our allies. Early in the 
war France had taken over the censorship of the Swiss 
mails, leaving to England the supervision of the mails 
to and from Holland and the Scandinavian countries. 
Little attention had been paid, however, to the Span- 
ish, Mexican, and Central and South American mails, 
save when they passed through the postal barrier 
erected by the Allied censorship around the neutral 
states of Europe. The first problem that faced the 
American censors, therefore, was to close the channels 
of information leading into Germany through Spain, 
or out of Germany, via Spain, to the Americas, Spain 
being in constant communication with Berlin by a 
powerful system of wireless. Upon our entrance into 
the war it became imperative to close this gap in the 
news blockade which was in force against the enemy. 
This done, the only possible way for a German sympa- 
thizer in the western hemisphere to communicate 
with Germany was indirectly, through an intermediary 
in a neutral country, it becoming necessary for a Ger- 
man agent in South America, for example, to direct 
his communications to some confederate in Holland or 
Scandinavia. Such communications, which were usu- 
ally disguised as innocent social or business letters, but 
in reality contained concealed messages in code, cipher. 



"M. I." 393 

or invisible ink, would then be transcribed by the con- 
federate in the neutral country and forwarded to the 
particular bureau of the German Government for 
which they were intended, either by special courier or 
through ordinary postal channels. 

Owing to the peculiar position of the United 
States and its distance from the actual battle-front, 
about 95 per cent of its postal-censorship work was 
negative in character and only 5 per cent positive, 
these terms, "negative" and "positive," being used 
in the same sense as they applied to other activities of 
Military Intelligence. By far the greater part of the 
mail that required censorship was of a nature which 
might have caused social unrest, labor troubles, or 
even rebellion in this country. Only a comparatively 
small number of letters were intercepted which brought 
positive information concerning the plans of the enemy 
or of neutrals. In studying this positive information 
it was necessary for the censors to keep constantly in 
mind the fact that the enemy intentionally permitted 
false information to be sent out, which, were it taken 
at its face value, might lead us to alter our plans or to 
relax our efforts. For periods of two or three months, 
perhaps longer, immediately preceding each of the 
great German offensives, there trickled into the offices 
of the censor scores of letters depicting in heartrending 
terms the social unrest and the appalling food condi- 
tions in the Fatherland. 

Early in 1918 the United States, following the 
example of France and England, established large 
chemical laboratories in New York and Washington, 



394 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

where thousands of letters were subjected to tests for 
invisible ink. The usual letter-paper which is used 
for communications in invisible ink can be given minor 
tests without altering its appearance. These prelimi- 
nary tests are for the purpose of ascertaining whether 
the paper has been moistened or subjected to other 
treatment preparatory to the use of invisible ink. In 
case the minor tests show the paper has received some 
unusual treatment, a major test is given which results 
in developing any invisible writing, though it at the 
same time affects the texture and color of the station- 
ery so that it is impossible to restore it to its original 
appearance. Practically all mail to or from persons 
on the suspect lists kept by England, France, and the 
United States was subjected to such examination. 

By assuming the censorship of the Spanish, West 
Indian, and Latin American mails, the American 
authorities were able to break up the trade relations 
which up to that time had existed between German 
sympathizers in the United States and German for- 
warding agents in South America. In the latter 
months of the war Germany found herself in desperate 
need of rubber in any form for use in electrical devices, 
particularly for the construction of electrical apparatus 
to be used in torpedoes and submarines. Hence we 
find the censorship intercepting suspicious orders for 
such goods as dental rubber, tobacco-pouches, rubber 
soles and heels. The censorship also intercepted and 
confiscated hundreds of tons of German propaganda 
literature prepared by German agents in Spain and 
intended for distribution in Latin America. Had this 



"M. L" 395 

propaganda reached the German agents in South and 
Central America to whom it was addressed and had it 
been distributed in accordance with their plans, it 
would unquestionably have resulted in great social 
unrest, political demonstrations, and revolutions, if 
not, indeed, in actual war between certain Latin 
American countries, thus interrupting our supply of 
certain products essential to the manufacture of muni- 
tions. Had the Germans, for example, succeeded in 
starting a war between Chile and Bolivia over the 
Tacna-Arica question, our supply of Chilean nitrates, 
which we imported in enormous quantities, in all prob- 
ability would have been cut off. In fact, it was the 
Ukelihood of just such an occurrence which led us to 
spend millions of dollars in the erection of nitrate plants 
in the United States, thus making us independent of 
the Chilean nitrate beds. The censorship was likewise 
largely responsible for preventing revolutions which 
were planned to take place simultaneously in Cuba 
and Mexico. German agents had planned to launch 
a revolution in the Oriente province of Cuba with a 
view to burning the cane-fields, while at the same time 
an insurrection was to break out in the Tampico dis- 
trict of Mexico, thus providing an excuse for the de- 
struction of the oil-wells. Had this plan been success- 
ful — and it came much nearer being successful than 
most persons realize — our main sources of supply for 
oil and sugar would have disappeared. But the plot- 
ters in Cuba were indiscreet enough to discuss their 
plans in letters sent to their representatives in the 
United States; these letters were intercepted by the 



396 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

postal censors, and a few days later a transport, loaded 
to the gunwales with American Marines, set sail for 
Guantanamo. The commander of the Marines had 
orders to prevent the peace of the island republic from 
being disturbed. And he did. For which we — and 
the Cubans — have to thank the postal censors. 

It did not take the government long to realize 
that, if the cable and postal censorships were to be 
made sufficiently water-tight to prevent our military 
secrets leaking through to the enemy, it would be 
necessary to reinforce them with a censorship of 
photographs and motion-picture films. Accordingly, 
the Censorship Section of Military Intelligence was 
charged, in addition to its numerous other duties, 
with the censorship of all pictures taken by military 
photographers for the use of the Committee on Public 
Information and for other publicity purposes, as well 
as of those taken for commercial purposes by private 
concerns. In order to keep our own people, as well as 
those of the Allied and neutral countries, acquainted 
with the progress which the United States was making 
in the business of war, scores of cameramen belonging 
to the Photographic Section of the Signal Corps were 
sent out, at the request of the Committee on Public 
Information, to take pictures at the cantonments, train- 
ing-camps, and munition factories in this country and 
in the theatres of operations overseas. As, however, 
there were countless details of our equipment, muni- 
tions, training methods, and the like of which the 
enemy must be kept in ignorance, it was imperative 
that all such pictures be carefully examined and passed 



"M. I." 397 

upon before being released for publication or exhibi- 
tion. And, moreover, they must be passed upon by 
men who were authorities on the various phases of 
the army with which the pictures dealt. That it was 
a matter which could not be left with safety to ama- 
teurs was emphasized by an incident which occurred 
in October, 1918, when the great Allied offensive was 
at its height. One Sunday morning the officers of 
the General Staff were astounded to see, in the illus- 
trated supplement of a New York newspaper, detailed 
photographs of the new French howitzers, the very 
existence of which up to that time had been one of 
the most carefully guarded secrets of the Allies. The 
young officer who passed the pictures for publication 
explained that, not being an artilleryman, the howit- 
zers looked like any other guns to him. A few weeks 
later the Staff was again surprised and angered to see 
another secret — the small tanks which were being 
manufactured in this country — revealed in the same 
paper. Here was another case of an officer having 
passed a photograph dealing with a subject of which 
he was ignorant. In order to prevent a repetition of 
such blunders, the Censorship Section arranged to 
work in close co-operation with the Chief Naval Censor 
and with experts in the offices of the Chief of Coast 
Artillery, the Chief of Field Artillery, the Chief of 
Ordnance, the Director of Mihtary Aeronautics, the 
Bureau of Aircraft Production, the quartermaster- 
general and the surgeon-general, these experts being 
consulted in regard to all pictures relating to their 
respective arms of the service. With their assistance 



398 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

a series of precedents was established and a set of regu- 
lations for the censorship of photographs was evolved. 
Among the pictures withheld from the public were 
those dealing with new inventions of military signif- 
icance, such as radio telephony; with all examples of 
military and naval camouflage, and with the various 
new types of artillery, especially those on tractor 
mounts. Such photographs as were not released were 
placed in the archives of the War College to become 
a permanent part of the pictorial history of the war, 
while those which were passed were turned over to 
the Committee on Public Information for distribution 
to the various agencies which were in a position to 
give them the greatest publicity. There was also an 
informal, intimate, and extremely valuable service 
which the section was able to perform. As pictures 
were received from the A. E. F., a systematic effort 
was made to furnish to the relatives and friends of 
soldiers serving overseas copies of the photographs 
or sections of the films in which their loved ones ap- 
peared, of the hospitals in which they were being 
treated, or of the spots where they were buried. As 
a result of this official thoughtfulness, comfort was 
given to many a lonely wife, many an anxious parent. 
A no less important phase of the section's activi- 
ties was the censorship of still and motion pictures 
taken for commercial use at home and abroad and 
the supervision of the firms and individuals taking 
them. When one remembers that "The Birth of a 
Nation" is estimated to have been seen by 60,000,000 
people, a realization can be had of the enormous pos- 



"M. I." 399 

sibilities of the motion-picture for purposes of propa- 
ganda and the necessity of subjecting it to rigid 
censorship. Whenever a picture contained a suggestion 
of enemy propaganda, or when the policy of a pro- 
ducing company appeared to be antagonistic to the 
interests of the United States, a systematic inves- 
tigation was started to determine the loyalty of the 
officers of the organization and the source of its finan- 
cial backing. If the enemy propaganda was evidently 
intentional, steps were immediately taken to prosecute 
the producers under the Espionage Act. If, however, 
as was usually the case, the fault was due to mere ig- 
norance or thoughtlessness, a conference with the per- 
sons concerned generally resulted in the alteration or 
withdrawal of the offending picture. 

Exceptional precautions were observed in the 
censoring of films destined for export. This work was 
in charge of the Customs Division of the Treasury 
Department, the films being viewed by a board com- 
posed of representatives of the Customs, Military and 
Naval Intelligence, and the Committee on Public In- 
formation. If a member of this board made any ob- 
jection to a film it was sent to the custom-house for 
review by another board of censors. If the matter 
to be deleted was unimportant, the objectionable parts 
were cut out in the projection room. If the film was 
approved, a letter of clearance was issued by the 
Committee on Public Information and an export 
license was then granted by the War Trade Board; 
should the film be rejected, the license was, of course, 
refused. 



400 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

In censoring commercial films and photographs, 
every effort was made to prevent the export of pic- 
tures which might reveal the war secrets of the United 
States, which might be distorted and used as enemy 
propaganda, or which might give a wrong impression 
of the conditions prevailing in this country. For ex- 
ample, no pictures dealing with the influenza epidemic 
were permitted to leave the country, for the German 
Government would almost certainly have used them 
as proof that the man-power of America was seriously 
impaired, thus encouraging the German people to 
prolong their resistance. An export license was re- 
fused to a picture showing the effects of a cyclone in 
Tyler, Texas, because, had it reached Germany, it 
would, in all probability, have been given a caption 
something like this: "American city after bombard- 
ment by German aircraft." The fact that there were 
no German aircraft on this side of the Atlantic would 
have made no difference; the credulous German public 
would have greeted such a picture with wild applause. 
As a matter of fact, thousands of pictures of crumbling 
castles in England and of French ruins dating from 
the Crusades were used in such manner by the Ger- 
mans. For a similar reason, the beautiful poster drawn 
by Joseph Pennell for the Fourth Liberty Loan, de- 
picting New York City in ruins as the result of a raid 
by German aircraft, was not permitted to go abroad, 
for it would have been only too easy for the German 
Government to publish it as an official picture of the 
devastation wrought by German airmen in the Amer- 
ican metropolis. I have wondered, indeed, why the 



"M. I." 401 

German propaganda bureau did not publish a picture 
of Pompeii with a caption to the effect that it was an 
Italian city destroyed by the Austrian fleet. 

Some curious schemes were perfected by German 
agents -in the United States to convey messages to 
Germany in spite of the censorship. A set of films 
depicting cannibal life in the South Seas aroused the 
suspicions of the censors because of the irregularity 
of the perforations and because of certain mysterious 
numbers appearing along the edges. The films were 
finally passed for export, but not until the perforations 
and numbers had been trimmed off. On another oc- 
casion the censor seized an advertising folder, issued 
by a famous New York department store, which con- 
tained a photograph of an exceedingly good-looking 
young woman wearing an embroidered blouse and a 
plaid skirt, such as the store was offering for sale. The 
picture showed the young woman standing beside a 
table, holding in one hand a volume which, upon close 
inspection, was found to bear the pecuHar title The 
Laborer^s Catechism. Some bright mind in the Cen- 
sorship Section deduced that this title was really the 
key to a code message, and that the message itself 
was contained in the embroidery on the blouse. The 
story, which appeared to have all the elements of a 
first-class spy tale, was spoiled, however, by the un- 
romantic code experts of M I 8, who professed them- 
selves unable to find any message concealed in the 
embroidery. Both the department store and the 
photographers who took the picture were entirely 
absolved of any attempt to communicate with the 



402 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

enemy, and the young woman herself was found in 
a hospital, desperately ill with influenza. When the 
agents of the Department of Justice visited the hos- 
pital some time later for the purpose of interrogating 
her, it was found that she had left for parts unknown. 
Whether the message was embroidery or imaginary 
I do not pretend to say. I merely repeat the story 
because it illustrates the extreme caution exercised by 
the Censorship Section. Knowing the cunning of 
the Teuton, it was taking no chances. 

Speaking of false scents in the tracking of spies, 
I remember being told in England of an old lady, ap- 
parently a woman of some means, living in a suburb 
of London, who was accustomed to write several times 
a week to her daughter in Austria. The letters, being 
addressed to an enemy country, were, of course, opened 
by the censor. Though there was nothing in the com- 
munications themselves which could, by any stretch 
of the imagination, be interpreted as treason, the sus- 
picions of the officials were instantly aroused by the 
discovery that each letter contained three new playing- 
cards. One letter might contain, for example, the ace 
of hearts, the ten of clubs, and the king of diamonds; 
in the next letter, posted a few days later, would be 
the seven and the nine of spades and the king of 
hearts. Here was a code which baffled every expert in 
the United Kingdom. British Intelligence, the Censor's 
Bureau, and the Criminal Investigation Department 
of Scotland Yard all tried to ferret out the mystery 
of the cards, but without success. Every conceivable 
test was applied to both the letters and the cards for 



"M. I." 403 

codes, ciphers, and invisible writing, but mthout an 
atom of success. At length the old lady, whose every 
movement had been shadowed for weeks, was sum- 
moned to Scotland Yard and questioned. When the 
chief inquisitor suddenly demanded of her why she 
enclosed pla}dng-cards in her letters to her daughter, 
she replied: "My daughter is a great bridge-player, 
and when I read in the newspapers that it was impos- 
sible to get cards in Austria, I thought I would slip 
three or four cards into every letter. In that way, 
you see, I would be able to send her a pack every five 
or six weeks." 

To another subsection of M I 10 was delegated 
the censorship of mail to and from the prisoners of 
war in the various internment camps in the United 
States. As there were nearly 6,000 of these interned 
enemies, and as they were permitted, by the regula- 
tions, to send nearly 40,000 letters and post-cards a 
month, no limit being placed on the amount of mail 
they could receive, the task of censoring this mass of 
correspondence, most of it in languages other than 
EngHsh, was very far from being a sinecure. The 
primary object of this censorship was to prevent the 
passing of objectionable communications, such as at- 
tacks on the government or information which might 
be of value to the enemy. The censors were also con- 
stantly on the watch to prevent the prisoners from 
acting as correspondence intermediaries; that is, from 
transmitting messages from Germany to German sym- 
pathizers in the United States, or vice versa. The kind 
of paper to be used by the prisoners for their corre- 



404 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

spondence was selected by the subsection with a view 
to making difficult, if not impossible, the use of secret 
inks. Thousands of letters, both to and from the 
prisoners, were submitted to chemical tests for invisible 
writing, and hundreds of others, which aroused sus- 
picion because of their pecuHar wording or unusual 
marking, were examined for possible messages in code. 
One prisoner endeavored to communicate with his 
wife by writing in lemon-juice under the flap of the 
envelope, and at Fort Douglas a scheme was discovered 
whereby German sympathizers communicated with 
the prisoners by means of dots placed under the letters 
of words in newspapers sent into the internment camp. 
In the days before the Great War revolutionized 
our customs and restricted the amazing liberty of ac- 
tion which we had enjoyed, it was as easy for any one 
who had the price of a ticket in his pocket to leave 
the United States as it was for him to leave his own 
dwelling. To-day — by which I mean the summer of 
1919 — it is about as easy for an American to leave 
the United States as it is for a convict to leave Sing 
Sing. This condition of affairs, so unfamiliar to Amer- 
icans, is due to the barrier which has been thrown 
around these shores by rigid enforcement of the 
passport regulations of the Department of State in 
co-operation with the Passport Section of Military 
Intelligence. Prior to the passport regulations of 
September, 1918, no law of this country required an 
American travelling abroad to have a passport. In 
fact, the only countries where passports were needed 
were Russia and Turkey. But upon the breaking of 



"M. I." 405 

the war-cloud in the summer of 1914, passports were 
required everywhere, and the person who could not 
produce one upon demand, immediately became an 
object of suspicion and investigation. Under the regu- 
lations now in force, the Department of State, by its 
authority to exercise discretion in the issuance of pass- 
ports, is in a position to control travel. And, thanks 
to the facilities of M I 1 1 for investigating the loyalty 
and character of applicants, the department is able to 
form a remarkably accurate opinion as to whether the 
applications it receives should be refused or granted. 

It must be perfectly obvious that, had the old 
system of non-interference with travel been permitted 
to continue, German agents could easily have come 
to the United States through neutral countries, gath- 
ered such information as they required, and departed 
as they came. When war was declared on April 6, 
191 7, it was not necessary for Congress to pass a law 
restricting travel by alien enemies, for the law was 
already in existence, having been framed in 1798, at 
a time when France was our enemy instead of our 
ally, and handed down to us by the Fathers. As a 
result of the authority conferred by this forgotten 
statute, the German agent who counted on the law's 
delay, habeas corpus proceedings, and a long-drawn- 
out trial by jury, received the surprise of his life, for 
he found himself seized by a long, swift arm which, 
waiting for neither indictment nor trial, placed him 
where he could do no further mischief. 

The seaman presented perhaps the most perplex- 
ing problem in the control of travel. He rarely remains 



4o6 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

on the same vessel for more than a few voyages and 
he seldom has a real home where his antecedents 
can be looked up. Moreover, under the Seaman's 
Act, he is permitted, if not, indeed, encouraged, to 
desert in an American port in order to be re-engaged 
at the higher American rates of pay. So long as sea- 
men from neutral countries, particularly those ad- 
jacent to Germany, could come ashore at will in Amer- 
ican ports, no really effective control was possible. 
So, following the example of England and the advice 
of our mihtary attaches in the countries of northern 
Europe, an order was issued by the Secretary of State 
— though not until seventeen days before the signing 
of the Armistice — forbidding seamen from neutral 
countries to leave their ships while in American ports. 
The presence of naval guards on the vessels insured 
the enforcement of the order, which was withdrawn, 
however, shortly after the signing of the Armistice. 

By an arrangement with the State Department, 
all passport apphcations, both from citizens and aliens, 
are referred to M I ii for investigation. The files 
of the Military Intelligence Division now contain a 
vast amount of information, much of it of a very de- 
tailed character, concerning persons and business firms 
in the United States and foreign countries. By re- 
ferring to these files, therefore, or by directing its 
agents to make special investigations, it is an easy 
matter for the Passport Section to decide whether the 
applicant is the sort of a person to whom a passport 
should be granted. The passenger-Hst of every vessel 
bound for an American port is cabled to the Passport 



" M. I." 407 

Section by the American consul upon the departure 
of the vessel from the last port of call. These lists 
are checked in the suspect files of the Military Intel- 
ligence Division, and if there is found anything which 
makes a passenger objectionable or suspicious, the 
intelligence officer at the port where the ship will ar- 
rive is promptly notified, whereupon the passenger in 
question is either denied entry to the United States 
or placed under arrest, according to his nationality 
and other circumstances. A somewhat similar system 
of control is in operation along the Mexican and Cana- 
dian borders, the immigration and intelligence officers 
who are stationed in the towns along the interna- 
tional boundaries making it difficult, though by no 
means impossible, for undesirables to enter or leave 
the country. It will thus be seen that the Passport 
Section, aided by a small army of military attaches, 
consuls, customs officials, immigration officers, secret 
agents, and intelligence police, has succeeded in estab- 
lishing a highly effective control of travel, thus pre- 
venting the entry or departure of persons whose ex- 
pressions or actions might prove detrimental to the 
interests of the United States. 

Military control of travel is, of course, a war- 
time measure, and with the passing of the emergency 
which gave it birth it will almost certainly disappear, 
along with most of the other activities of Mihtary 
InteUigence. Though I am heartily in favor of com- 
pletely restoring the country to a peace-time basis, 
and of abolishing the many highly arbitrary measures 
made necessary by the war, it seems to me that it 



4o8 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

might be a good idea to continue some form of travel 
control which would prevent the entry into the United 
States of undesirable aliens. We have quite enough 
of them as it is. 



VIII 
"TREAT 'EM ROUGH!" 

IT is rather a curious circumstance that the idea 
from which was evolved one of the most formidable 
weapons of the war, and one which proved a prime 
factor in bringing Germany to her knees, was obtained 
by an Englishman in Germany, from under the very 
noses of the Germans themselves, who did not have 
the vision to recognize its amazing military possibili- 
ties. About a year before the Teutonic wave surged 
across the frontiers of France, the representative of 
a California manufacturing concern was giving demon- 
strations in the larger German cities of a singular device 
known as the Holt caterpillar tractor. Though this 
contrivance, in spite of its grotesque and clumsy ap- 
pearance, could cross ditches and surmount obstacles 
with amazing agility, it did not arouse particular in- 
terest among the Germans, for it was intended for 
the pursuits of peace, whereas they were even then 
seeking new means for making war. But it chanced 
that among the onlookers at one of the demonstrations 
was an English traveller, who had the imagination to 
see in the clumsy machine, as it waddled across an 
apparently impassable terrain with the relentlessness 
of fate, something more than an agricultural appliance. 
Upon his return to England he described the tractor 

to Colonel E. D. Swinton, who evinced the livehest 

409 



4IO THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

interest in the subject, closely examining the pictures 
and asking countless questions. I might add that 
General Swinton, for he has since been promoted, has, 
unlike most professional soldiers, a highly developed 
imagination, as is shown in the stories he has written, 
the best known of which is entitled The Green 
Curve. Colonel Swinton, who had served in the 
South African campaign, had long had in mind an 
idea for an armored fighting-machine, a sort of small 
fort on wheels, which could be propelled by its own 
power over ground impassable to any other type of 
vehicle. The caterpillar tractor gave him the means 
of propulsion which he had been seeking. But, as 
might have been expected, the hidebound, brassbound 
officials of the War Office condemned the suggestion 
as fantastic and impractical, it not being until 191 5, 
when the gloom of despondency overhung the land 
and people snatched at straws of hope, that Swinton 's 
plans were taken from their pigeonhole for reconsidera- 
tion and he was reluctantly given permission to show 
what he could do. Upon caterpillar tractors brought 
from America he proceeded to mount armored hulls 
built according to his own designs, the land battle- 
ships thus created being armed with both field and 
machine guns. They were tested under conditions of 
the greatest secrecy, the trials proving so successful 
that the construction of a considerable number was 
immediately authorized. In order that the pubHc 
might obtain no hint of the true nature or purpose 
of these terrible new weapons they were referred to 
as "tanks," the impression being given that they were 



"TREAT 'EM ROUGH!" 411 

intended for transporting water. Painted in dull colors 
and swathed in tarpaulins, fifty tanks were landed at 
Le Havre on August 29, 1916, and were moved up to 
the Somme front under cover of darkness. At dawn 
on September 15, everything being in readiness for 
the launching of the great Sonome drive, they were 
entered in battle on a most astonished foe. 

Though I saw one of the tanks in action on this 
occasion — it was named, if I am not mistaken, ^'Creme 
de Menthe" — I was not permitted to photograph it or 
to write about it. It has repeatedly been asserted 
that these tanks were the first vehicles of their kind 
in the history of warfare, and that is true, so far as 
the method used for their propulsion is concerned, yet 
it is interesting to note that, ten years before the Great 
Navigator set foot on the beach of San Salvador, Leo- 
nardo da Vinci had written as follows to the Duke Lu- 
dovico Sforza: "I am also building secure and covered 
chariots which are invulnerable, and when they ad- 
vance with their guns into the midst of the foe, even 
the largest army masses must retreat, and behind 
them infantry may follow in safety and without op- 
position." 

Everything considered, the tanks were not of 
much assistance to the infantry on the occasion of 
their first appearance, though they unquestionably 
caused considerable consternation in the German lines. 
Owing to delay in production, the British were obliged 
to employ at the battle of Arras, on April 9, 191 7, tanks 
identical with those which had been used on the Somme 
and which were, in reality, fit only for training pur- 



412 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

poses, having only 8-mm. armor. Nevertheless, two 
battahons were launched on a two-kilometre front, 
and there is no doubt that they rendered valuable 
service, the capture by twelve tanks of a German 
stronghold known as "The Harp" being a particularly 
noteworthy achievement. Eighty-eight tanks of an 
improved model, protected with 12-mm. armor, were 
used in the attack on Messines Ridge, June 7, 191 7, 
but the success of the infantry was so complete on 
that occasion that the tanks had only an unimportant 
role to play. The torrential rains which fell during 
the early stages of the Ypres offensive on July 31 
turned the battle-field into a broad and treacherous 
morass, in which tanks were of but little use. The 
following figures, which were doubtless as well known 
to Hindenburg as to Haig, explain why the tanks did 
not sweep everything before them, as it was confidently 
expected that they would do, and why the Germans 
were no longer particularly alarmed by their appear- 
ance: 





Battie of 


Tanks in 
action 


Ditched 


Hit by shells 


First day's fighting . . 


[Arras 
] Messines 
I Ypres 


60 

88 

133 


33 (55%) 

7 (19%) 

60 (45%) 


7 (2%) 

4 (5%) 

37 (28%) 



It was my understanding at the time that the 
use of tanks by the British during the fighting on the 
Somme caused great annoyance to the French High 
Command, it being asserted that the British had agreed 
not to make use of their machines until the tanks which 
the French had under construction were ready, when 



"TREAT 'EM ROUGH!" 413 

both armies would make a combined tank attack on 
a large scale. How much foundation there was for 
this assertion I do not know, but perhaps it was as 
well that the British tanks made their debut when 
they did, for the French did not make use of tanks 
until April 16, 191 7, when 132 Schneider tanks at- 
tacked between Rheims and the Aisne. "In spite 
of the congratulations of the commander-in-chief," 
reads a French report, "the results did not meet ex- 
pectations, although wherever tanks were used they 
led the infantry beyond the advance of the rest of 
the front of attack." 

It would seem that it was not until the British 
victory at Cambrai, when 430 tanks were used to lead 
a large attack, in the course of which 8,000 prisoners 
and 100 guns were taken, that the German High Com- 
mand realized that the use of tanks could no longer 
be postponed, for shortly thereafter the German Tank 
Corps was formed, an Antitank School of Instruction 
was estabHshed, and orders were placed for a large 
number of antitank rifles. The Germans experienced 
numerous manufacturing difficulties, however, in the 
construction of their tanks, and when Marshal Hinden- 
burg inspected the first fifteen panzerkraftwagens, as 
they were called, at Charleroi, in March, 1918, he 
damned them with the faint praise: "They probably 
won't be of much use, but since they are made we 
might as well employ them." This discouraging send- 
off apparently had its effect, for the original of the 
Elfriede type — Elfriede herseff — was ditched and cap- 
tured near Villers-Brettoneux a few weeks later. By 



414 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

contriving to unite in this one model all the faults of 
the British and French tanks, the Germans once again 
proved the truth of the old saying: "Success has many 
imitators, but sometimes they copy only her defects." 
According to a German deserter, the German Tank 
Corps in July, 1918, consisted of 25 German tanks and 
50 repaired British machines. This same authority 
stated that 250 light tanks had been ordered for de- 
livery in September, 1918, and that in April construc- 
tion had been begun on a monster 38 feet long, 
weighing no tons, carrying four 77-mm. cannon and 
13 machine-guns. This formidable war-engine, called a 
*'Fahrbarer Sefechtsunter stand : ver dunden mit Ar til- 
ler ie tint Infanterie Beebachtung," boasted contrivances 
for creating artificial mists (probably similar to our 
own smoke-producing devices), for laying and covering 
its own telephone-wires en route, was equipped with 
wireless, and carried a crew of an officer and twenty- 
eight men. If this supertank was ever constructed, 
it certainly never went into action. 

The Germans were more successful, however, 
when it came to devising protective measures against 
tank attacks. These consisted of trenches of peculiar 
construction and design, some of them from 15 to 20 
feet wide and 6 to 8 feet in depth; "tank traps," con- 
sisting of deep pits with camouflaged covers; bridges 
so built as not to support a tank's weight; mine-fields; 
special tank observation-posts; Tank Goschutz Batterie, 
as the Germans called their groups of 77-mm. antitank 
cannon; 55-mm. tank batteries, which were kept in 
pits about a thousand metres from the front line and 



"TREAT 'EM ROUGH!" 415 

were only brought up when tanks were signalled; 
trench mortars mounted for horizontal fire; machine- 
guns firing armor-piercing bullets; hand-grenades 
with concentrated charges, and antitank rifles. The 
antitank rifle was a single-shot Mauser, mounted on 
a bipod, weighing 32 pounds and firing an armor-pierc- 
ing ball of 13-mm. caliber. At close range this weapon 
penetrated the British heavy and the French light 
tanks. Had it been used in groups it might well have 
proved extremely formidable, but the unpopularity 
it enjoyed because of its heavy recoil combined with 
a well-founded reluctance on the part of its users to 
await the near approach of a tank, in a large measure 
neutralized its effectiveness. Toward the close of the 
struggle it seems to have fallen into general disuse, 
and when the Armistice was signed the enemy was 
preparing to supplant it with a 22-mm. machine-gun, 
a few of which had already been used with consider- 
able success. 

When the United States entered the war in April, 
191 7, the value of the tank as a weapon of offense had 
been so thoroughly estabHshed that steps were imme- 
diately taken to form a tank organization of our own, 
a special regiment — the 65 th Engineers — being raised 
for the purpose. The units of this regiment were re- 
cruited at Camp Upton, New York; Camp Devens, 
Massachusetts; Camp Meade, Maryland; Camp Lee, 
Virginia, and Camp Cody, New Mexico, the entire 
regiment being assembled in March, 1918, at Camp 
Colt, on the battle-field of Gettysburg, which then 



4i6 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

became the general concentration and preliminary 
training-camp for the tank organization. The tanks 
passed from the control of the Corps of Engineers on 
March 6, 191 8, when the Secretary of War directed 
the organization of the Tank Corps as a separate arm 
of the service, Lieutenant-Colonel Ira C. Welborn, a 
regular infantry officer, being commissioned as colonel 
and appointed director of the Tank Corps in the United 
States. 

The structural organization of the corps, as it 
existed at the close of the war, consisted of General 
Tank Headquarters, with 15 officers and 60 men; Army 
Tank Headquarters (one for each field army), with 
7 officers and 27 men; Brigade Headquarters, 4 officers 
and 47 men; a Heavy Battalion, with a strength of 
68 officers and 778 men; a Light Battalion, consisting 
of 20 officers and 375 men; a repair and salvage com- 
pany, 4 officers and 146 men; a Depot Company, 4 
officers and 138 men. To each Army Tank Head- 
quarters were assigned 5 brigades, each brigade being 
composed of 3 battalions, i heavy and 2 light, and i 
repair and salvage company. A battalion consists of 
three companies, each company having three platoons. 
As five fighting-tanks are assigned to each platoon, it 
will thus be seen that a field army has 675 tanks at 
its disposal. 

The commissioned and enlisted personnel of the 
Tank Corps was of as high an average, both mentally 
and physically, as any organization in the army, not 
even excepting the Air Service. About 65 per cent 
of the corps were technically trained men — engineers 



"TREAT 'EM ROUGH!" 417 

and machinists — while the remaining 35 per cent was 
composed of business and professional men, farmers, 
cow-punchers, college undergraduates, and soldiers of 
fortune. They came from every section of every State 
in the Union. Their versatility was denoted by the 
pipings of their overseas caps — blue, red, and yellow — 
which denoted that they combined the functions of 
infantry, artillery, and cavalry. Several other colors 
might appropriately have been added, however, for 
the tank men were as familiar with Browning, Lewis, 
and Vickers as the machine-gunners, they knew as 
much about gas-engines as the Motor Transport Corps, 
they were as competent to make repairs as the men 
of the Ordnance Department, and in action they took 
as many risks as the youngsters on whose breasts were 
embroidered the silver wings. They were as keen as 
razors and as hard as nails. They were, to use the 
phraseology of the plains, fairly "rarin' to go," and 
they were ready and anxious to fight at the drop of 
the hat. In fact, that was why they joined the Tank 
Corps — because they believed it offered more oppor- 
tunities for Boche-killing than any other branch of 
the service. 

The training of the tank units was based on in- 
fantry drill, which is the best means of instilKng dis- 
cipHne. This was supplemented, however, by instruc- 
tion in the use of machine-guns and tank cannon and 
in the operation and maintenance of gas-engines, the 
men finally being brought to a point where they were 
ready to take up technical and tactical tank training 
at the British and French tank-training centres, to 



4i8 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

which they were sent as soon as there was accommoda- 
tion for them. Thousands of men, trained to the Hmit 
of the facilities in this country, were held at Gettys- 
burg from April and May until August and September 
because of the shortage of tanks and the lack of train- 
ing facilities in France. Not until September, in fact, 
did any tanks become available for training purposes 
in the United States, when there arrived five British 
heavy tanks and several light tanks of American manu- 
facture, thus permitting training to be resumed on a 
larger scale. When the Armistice was signed, the Tank 
Corps had a total of 20,212 officers and men, of whom 
8,183 were serving in Europe. Shortly before the col- 
lapse of Germany preparations had been begun for the 
great Allied drive planned for the spring of 19 19, steps 
being taken to increase the corps to a point where it 
could supply tank units for four field armies. The pro- 
posed strength for this purpose was 57,940 officers and 
men, it being planned to have this entire force fully 
organized, trained, equipped, and in France by the 
early spring of 19 19. 

The programme of tank construction for the 
American Army was initiated in February, 1918, but, 
owing to the extensive arrangements which had to be 
made with numerous manufacturers for the enormous 
number of parts required, and to the fact that there 
existed in the United States little or no accurate data 
regarding tank construction, the first light tank was 
not delivered to the Tank Corps in the United States 
until the following September. Owing to the more 
complicated mechanism of the heavy tanks, none of 




THE AMKRICAX WHIPPET TANK. 




THE MARK V TANK. 




Photograph by Signal Corps, U. S. A. 

A SQUADRON OF WHIPPET TANKS ADVANCING IN BATTLE FORMATION. 




Photograph by Signal Corps. U. S. A. 

A SQUADRON OF WHIPPET TANKS PARKED AND CAMOUFLAGED TO CONCEAL 
THEM FROM ENEMY OBSERVATION. 



"TREAT 'EM ROUGH!" 419 

them was completed before the signing of the Armis- 
tice. The machines used by the American Tank Corps 
units engaged on the Western Front were suppKed 
by the French and British, no American-built tanks 
being employed in active fighting during the war. 

After a series of conferences between American, 
French, and British tank officers, it was decided that 
two types of tanks should be manufactured in the 
United States: a heavy mode l(Mark VIII) and a light 
machine (Mark I) known as a "whippet." The heavy 
tank, which weighs thirty-five tons and carries a crew 
of one officer and nine men, is armed with two six- 
pounder rapid-fire guns and six Browning machine- 
guns, and is capable of a speed of from four and one-half 
to six miles an hour over ordinary ground. The whip- 
pet, named after a breed of small dog used in England 
for racing, was an adaption of the French Renault tank. 
It weighs six tons and carries , a crew of two men — a 
driver and a gunner — and over ordinary ground can 
move at a speed of from seven to eight miles an hour. 
These, then, were the two types of tanks originally 
decided upon, but, as will be seen, the programme 
was considerably altered. 

When it was decided that the United States should 
embark on a programme of tank construction, the 
Ordnance Department had only the haziest instruc- 
tions to guide it. Owing to the mystery in which the 
French and British enshrouded the details of their 
tank construction, all that our Ordnance officers knew 
about a tank was that it should be able to cross 
trenches at least six feet wide, that it should be pro- 



420 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

tected with armor-plate approximately five-eighths of 
an inch thick, and that it should carry one heavy gun 
and two or three machine-guns. Two experimental 
machines were laid down and work started on them 
at once, these models being intended to develop the 
possibilities of the gas, electric, and steam systems of 
propulsion as well as to ascertain the relative advan- 
tages of very large wheels and a specially articulated 
form of caterpillar tread. 

At this time the British were using and were in- 
terested in a large tank only. The French had been 
using a medium-sized tank, known as the Schneider, 
but, as it had not been wholly successful, they had 
developed a much smaller two-man machine, called 
the Renault, which presented some very decided ad- 
vantages and which they eventually adopted as their 
only type. While the large British tank had been 
reasonably successful in operation, it had certain very 
decided limitations which the British themselves recog- 
nized, so, after a thorough investigation of its possibili- 
ties and shortcomings, it was decided to redesign the 
large tank rather than to copy the existing model with 
its admitted defects. It was furthermore decided that 
the work of designing should be done jointly by Brit- 
ish and American engineers, acting under the Anglo- 
American agreement drawn up as the result of a 
conference at British General Headquarters, which 
provided for the joint production by England and the 
United States of 1,500 large tanks, England to furnish 
the hulls, guns, and ammunition, the United States 
to provide the power-plant and driving mechanism. 



"TREAT 'EM ROUGH!" 421 

When the Armistice was signed, approximately 50 per 
cent of the work represented by the American com- 
ponents had been completed, and it was confidently 
expected that the entire programme of 1,500 would 
have been completed by March. England had about 
250 of the hulls ready when the Armistice was signed. 

The work of manufacturing the French type of 
tank had not progressed satisfactorily, however, this 
being partly due to the delay involved in changing 
all drawings from the metric system to the American, 
and to the difficulty which was experienced in induc- 
ing American concerns to take on the production of 
this machine, which is extremely complicated and 
difficult to manufacture. It was necessary, there- 
fore, to divide up manufacturing activities on this 
tank between a considerable number of plants. The 
original programme called for 4,440 of these small 
tanks, of which 209 had been completed by the end 
of December, 1918, with 289 more partly completed 
and production just getting under way. There was 
every reason to believe that the entire number would 
have been ready for use by April, 1919. 

During the last summer of the war two new types 
of tank were developed. One of these was a two-man, 
three-ton affair, which the Ford Motor Company 
guaranteed to produce at the rate of one hundred a 
day. Orders were placed with that concern for 15,000 
of these "flivvers" and the first 500 machines would 
have been ready for delivery on January i, but upon 
the signing of the Armistice their production was 



422 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

stopped. The other machine was a successor to the 
French Renault, but designed with a view to quan- 
tity production. It carried three men instead of two 
and was armed with both a 37-mm. cannon and a ma- 
chine-gun, whereas the Renault carried only two men 
and one weapon. The cost of production would have 
been very much less than the Renault machine and 
the weight substantially the same. One thousand of 
these had already been ordered and negotiations were 
pending for a second thousand — the first to be delivered 
in January and the entire two thousand by the end 
of March. 

In addition to the above activities, the Ordnance 
Department had decided to build 1,450 of the large 
Mark VIII tanks, including hull, guns, and ammuni- 
tion, entirely in this country. In fact, work on the 
interior components for this lot of machines was well 
under way when the Armistice was signed. 

It was perhaps as well for the Germans that they 
contracted yellow fever when they did, for had the 
war continued long enough to permit of America 
launching the avalanche of tanks which she had under 
construction, the Huns certainly would have had heart- 
failure. I doubt, indeed, if any Americans, save the 
handful of officers directly concerned, realize how 
tremendous was our tank programme. When the 
war ended, orders had actually been placed for 23,390 
tanks, representing an outlay of approximately $175,- 
000,000. This vast fleet of tanks was to be manned 
by some 58,000 men — as many as there were in the 
entire American Army prior to the war with Spain. 



"TREAT 'EM ROUGH!" 423 

Had these tanks been placed side to side they would have 
formed a moving wall of steel forty miles long. Even 
the comparatively few Tank Corps units which had 
an opportunity to get into action gave the enemy a 
taste of what we were preparing for him. Their crest 
was an angry cat. Their motto was ''Treat 'Em 
Rough ! " And they did. 



IX 
"GET THERE!" 

IT may be said, without taking undue liberties with 
the truth, that the newest branch of the American 
Army, the Motor Transport Corps, owes its existence 
to a Mexican bandit named Francisco Villa, sometimes 
called "Pancho" for short. You may have heard of 
him. Though the officers who wear on their collars the 
insignia of the wheel and the winged helmet will proba- 
bly disagree with this statement, asserting that their 
corps is an outgrowth of the Great War, it is, neverthe- 
less, a fact that the present huge organization, which 
controls all the motor-driven transport of the American 
Army, had its beginning in the handful of trucks, barely 
a score in all, which ploughed their way across the sands 
of Chihuahua in the wake of Pershing's little punitive 
colunm. 

When Villa and his raiders swooped down upon 
the border settlement of Columbus on the night of 
March 8, 1916, there was not a single organized motor- 
truck unit in the army, our officers, most of them 
trained in the schools of Indian and Filipino warfare, 
insisting that no motor-driven vehicle was as sturdy and 
dependable as the old-time escort wagon and its four- 
mule team. The refusal of our staff authorities to 
recognize the advantages of motor transport is the more 
difficult to understand when it is remembered that for 

dose on four years there had been unfolding before our 

424 



"GET THERE!" 425 

eyes the countless object-lessons of civil life and of the 
war in Europe, every highway from the North Sea to 
the Alps being crowded with the motor-driven vehicles 
of the fighting armies. 

The present Motor Transport Corps may be said 
to have been born when, three days after the Colum- 
bus raid, General Funston, in command of the South- 
ern Department, telegraphed to Washington for au- 
thorization to form a number of motor-truck companies 
for service with the punitive expedition. The War De- 
partment acted promptly. The request was immedi- 
ately approved, and within three days twenty-four 
trucks had been purchased, a force of civilian drivers 
had been recruited, and the entire outfit loaded aboard 
special trains. As soon as the trains reached Columbus 
the trucks were loaded with supplies and sent across the 
border to overtake the expedition, which was already 
well into northern Mexico. Notwithstanding the total 
absence of anything resembling roads, despite the deep 
sand, the extreme heat, and the inexperience of the 
drivers, the trucks caught up with the column before 
the supplies which it had taken from the United States 
were exhausted. From that moment the value of 
motor-driven vehicles for military purposes was firmly 
established in the minds of American officers, even the 
most hidebound old Indian fighters, who disapproved 
of everything new on principle, being compelled to ad- 
mit that the mule must give way to the motor. 

The first two motor-truck units proved so ex- 
tremely efficient that the organization of others was 
begun, and by June 30 there had been formed fifteen 



426 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

companies in all. The personnel of these early motor- 
transport companies was civihan, the drivers and re- 
pair men being provided by the factories which sup- 
plied the trucks, but it quickly became apparent that 
the employment of civilians would not prove satis- 
factory because of their lack of discipline and the con- 
sequent difficulty of keeping them under control, 
the officers not knowing how to handle civiHans. 
So, whenever possible, enlisted men who had had 
experience with motor vehicles or who possessed some 
mechanical aptitude were transferred to the truck 
companies to replace the civilians, the latter remaining 
on to give instruction in driving and maintenance. 
Maintenance is, I might add, perhaps the most im- 
portant factor in the successful operation of motor 
vehicles, for broken-down cars must be repaired, worn 
parts must be replaced, and the vehicles must fre- 
quently be overhauled. In order to maintain in a state 
of efficiency the truck trains operating in Mexico, it 
was found necessary, therefore, to build repair-shops 
and to organize repair crews. Though the personnel 
of these shops, like the drivers, was at first largely 
civihan, it, too, was gradually replaced by enlisted 
men, so it may be said that by the opening of 191 7 
motor transportation had become a recognized branch 
of the military establishment, although it was not until 
some time after declaration of war that it was author- 
ized for the army. 

Although, upon our entry into the European war, 
preparations were immediately begun for the com- 
plete motorization of the various trains — ammunition, 



"GET THERE!" 427 

engineer, sanitary, and supply — which comprise the 
divisional trains, each of these sections was still con- 
trolled by the corps or department to which it per- 
tained. In other words, the ammunition trains were 
controlled by the Ordnance Department so far as the 
procurement of vehicles and the supply of personnel 
was concerned; the engineer trains were under the con- 
trol of the Corps of Engineers; the sanitary trains were 
under the Medical Corps, and only the supply trains 
came under the jurisdiction of the Quartermaster Corps. 
It must be understood, however, that the divisional 
trains were assigned to and became a part of the divi- 
sion itself, being, therefore, under the direct command 
of the divisional commander. As might have been ex- 
pected, this system resulted in inefficiency and confusion 
because of municipal officers in control. Instead of all 
motor activities being directed by a single head, each 
of the staff departments using motor vehicles had its 
own ideas and worked along its own lines. Thus, the 
Corps of Engineers had designed and was manufactur- 
ing various types of vehicles adapted to engineering 
work. The Signal Corps was producing vehicles de- 
signed for carrying radio equipment, photographic 
laboratories, and the like. The Medical Corps was 
experimenting with various types of ambulances, dental 
wagons, and mobile laboratories, while the Ordnance 
Department was dividing its allegiance between the 
tractor type and the model known as the "Quad" 
or four-wheel drive. Thus it was that for many months 
after the declaration of war the motor activities of the 
army were distributed among several arms of the ser- 



428 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

vice, with the inefficiency and duplication of effort which 
invariably results from decentralization. 

The necessity for a separate organization to han- 
dle motor transportation was first recognized by the A. 
E. F., and in December, 191 7, General Pershing issued 
a general order creating a Motor Transport Service. 
The new service was described as a part of the Quarter- 
master Corps, and an assistant to the Chief Quarter- 
master was detailed as its chief. For all practical pur- 
poses, however, it became a separate organization. 
In the United States the transition was more gradual, 
it not being until August, 1918, that the Secretary of 
War authorized the creation of a Motor Transport 
Corps as a separate and distinct branch of the military 
establishment, Colonel Charles B. Drake, who was later 
made a brigadier-general, being named as its first chief. 
The new organization was built up along the same lines 
as the Motor Transport Service, the officers and men 
of the latter being transferred to similar positions in the 
new corps, thus enabling them to continue the per- 
formance of their duties without interruption or con- 
fusion. The effect was as though the Motor Transport 
Service was lifted bodily out of the Quartermaster 
Corps, renamed, and made completely independent, 
the only visible sign of the change being, however, 
that the officers and men changed their Quartermaster 
insignia for the winged helmet superimposed upon a 
motor-wheel which was adopted as the device of the 
new corps. 

Under the new order all the motor transportation 
of the army, save only tractors used for artillery pur- 



"GET THERE!" 429 

poses, was embraced in the Motor Transport Corps. 
The Medical Corps, the Engineer Corps, the Quarter- 
master Corps, the Signal Corps, and the Department of 
Military Aeronautics, all of which had developed special 
types of vehicles for their respective needs, imme- 
diately turned over their equipment to the new or- 
ganization. The designing of bodies was left to the 
several branches, but the designing of all types of 
chassis was included in the functions of the Motor 
Transport Corps. Among the duties of the new corps 
were the design, procurement, storage, maintenance, 
and replacement of all motor vehicles, though a few 
weeks later procurement was assigned to the Purchase, 
Storage, and Traffic Division of the office of the 
Quartermaster- General, with the proviso, however, 
that the Motor Transport Corps should prescribe the 
type and design of the vehicles supplied to it. The 
corps was thus enabled to insist that it be supplied 
only with the standardized military truck, the design 
of which had been achieved by the Motor Transport 
Service in spite of much opposition and after untiring 
effort. This arrangement also effectually prevented 
the purchase and use of vehicles of many different de- 
signs and put an end to the complicated and extrava- 
gant system of spare parts and supplies inseparable 
from the use of a multiplicity of types. 

I might mention, in passing, that in the spring of 
19 1 7, just prior to our entry into the war, the auto- 
motive engineers of the United States met in Washing- 
ton and, putting aside all thought of commercial 
rivalry or profit, or, indeed, of everything save patriot- 



430 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

ism, designed a motor-truck which combined the best 
features of the many trucks which were then being man- 
ufactured, placing at the disposal of the government de- 
signs and patents that were the result of heavy ex- 
penditures of time, money, and talent. This work of 
standardization was in charge of Mr. Christian Girl, 
who was probably better fitted for the task than any 
man in the United States. The result was a standard- 
ized military motor-truck which is generally admitted 
to be the most efficient vehicle of its kind in existence. 

The efficiency of any motor-transport service, no 
matter how well equipped with vehicles, must depend 
primarily upon the efficiency of its personnel. The 
finest truck that mechanical genius can design and 
money can buy can be ruined in a few hours by the 
carelessness or ignorance of its driver. It was quickly 
realized, therefore, that, if the Motor Transport Corps 
was to give efficient service, its officers and men must 
be as carefully trained as their fellows in the combatant 
branches of the army. The first real training-school 
for Motor Transport officers was established by General 
Pershing in France, its students being recruited mainly 
from Americans who had gone overseas prior to our 
entry into the war and had entered the French service 
as camion and ambulance drivers. These men pos- 
sessed much practical knowledge, gained in actual 
warfare, and a large percentage of them were given 
commissions in the Motor Transport Service of the A. 
E. F. The chief training-centre in the United States 
was at Camp Joseph E. Johnston, on the St. John's 
River, near Jacksonville, Fla., and a smaller one was 



''GET THERE!" 431 

later organized at Camp Meigs, in the District of Co- 
lumbia. Using as a basis of instruction the curriculum 
adopted by the A, E. F., the officers and men at these 
camps were given a very thorough course of training in 
all phases of motor- transport work, including road- 
training, tactics, maintenance and repair of cars, and 
a certain amount of infantry drill in order to inculcate 
discipline. But with the growth of the army increased 
training facilities became imperative, it being estimated 
that between 20,000 and 30,000 men per month would 
be required by the Motor Transport Corps. In fact, 
requirements from overseas for men for operations up 
to July 1, 19 1 9, was placed at upward of 231,000 officers 
and men. In order to train these men and organize 
them into the proposed units, it was planned to 
establish motor-transport training-centres at Camp 
Bowie, Texas; Fort Sheridan, Illinois; Camp Fremont, 
California; Camp Wheeler, Georgia, and Camp Taylor, 
Kentucky, which, in conjunction with the schools 
already in operation at Camp Joseph E. Johnston and 
Camp Meigs, and other schools which had been estab- 
lished by the Committee of Education and Special 
Training, would have given a total monthly training 
capacity of 23,800 men. The signing of the Armistice 
put an abrupt end to this enormous training programme, 
but plans have already been perfected for the formation 
of a Motor Transport Reserve Corps, which, it is be- 
lieved, will result in providing a large number of officers 
trained in motor-transport duties and ready for imme- 
diate service in the event that the United States should 
again go to war. 



432 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

About six weeks before the signing of the Ar- 
mistice a spectacular campaign was inaugurated in or- 
der to obtain for the corps recruits possessing the neces- 
sary technical and mechanical training. Ofhcers and 
civilians were sent to the principal cities in the United 
States to open recruiting offices, though no funds were 
appropriated for office rent, clerical hire, supplies, or 
advertising, each recruiting officer being expected to 
exercise his ingenuity in procuring all of the above 
v/ithout cost to the government. But thanks to the 
co-operation and assistance rendered by the local Cham- 
bers of Commerce and Boards of Trade, and to the pa- 
triotism of the automobile manufacturers and news- 
papers, the campaign proved, in spite of the lack of 
funds, a remarkable success, there being received more 
than 50,000 applications for enlistment. 

Shortly after the beginning of hostilities steps 
were taken toward the establishment of three great 
motor- transport centres : Camp Holabird, about twenty 
miles from Baltimore, on the shores of Chesapeake Bay; 
Camp Jessup, at Atlanta, Ga., and Camp Normoyle. 
The huge assembly and repair shops erected at these 
camps are perhaps the most complete plants of their 
kind in existence, being of permanent construction 
and adapted to the needs of the army for many years 
to come. At each of these camps storage facilities 
have been provided for the vast number of motor ve- 
hicles which will not be required under peace condi- 
tions, but which will be kept in constant readiness for 
use in an emergency. Practically all motor vehicles 
destined for service overseas passed through Camp 



"GET THERE!" 433 

Holabird, where they were uncrated, assembled, put 
in thorough running order, inspected, registered, and 
finally loaded aboard ship for transport to France. 
During the last summer of the war, when the shipment 
of motor vehicles was at its height, Camp Holabird 
w^as worth journeying a considerable ways to see, there 
being literally acres of vehicles, ranging all the way 
from huge artillery repair trucks, veritable machine- 
shops on wheels, to "flivvers" which unsuccessfully 
attempted to conceal their identity beneath coats of 
olive-drab. The paint-shops were, incidentally, one of 
the most interesting features of the camps, the paint 
being sprayed on the vehicles by means of air-brushes 
and a hose in little more time than it takes to tell about 
it. Thanks to this ingenious method, it did not take 
very much longer to paint a motor car or a truck than 
it does to polish a pair of shoes. Then there were the 
trimming-shops, where tops, curtains, boots, and cush- 
ions were turned out by the thousand; the supply 
depots, whose huge steel and concrete buildings were 
stacked to the ceilings with incredible quantities of 
tires, tubes, lamps, and other accessories; the repair- 
shops, with their forges, lathes, and travelling cranes; 
and the spare-parts department, where, thanks to a 
remarkably ingenious card-index system, there could be 
obtained without confusion or delay any duplicate 
part that might be called for, whether it was a new rear 
axle for a mobile repair-shop or a tiny cotter-pin for 
a motorcycle. Though these great shops had been in 
operation only a few months when the war ended, and 
though their personnel had been obtained anywhere, 



434 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

everywhere, almost at a moment's notice, they were 
probably, everything considered, the best organized 
and most efficient plants of their kind in the world. 

The Motor Transport Corps naturally resolves it- 
self into two main branches: Park Service and Field 
Service. The first of these branches is subdivided, in 
turn, into four general t}^es of parks: Reception, Or- 
ganization, Replacement, and Repair. The Reception 
Park was usually established at, or near, a base port 
for the purpose of receiving motor vehicles for ship- 
ment abroad. Here the vehicles were uncrated, as- 
sembled, registered, and put in running condition. 
This done, the vehicle was sent on to an Organization 
Park, where vehicles and men first met, the latter 
coming from one of the Motor Transport Corps schools; 
here the various units were organized, and the per- 
sonnel and material held in readiness for assignment. 
The function of a Replacement Park is, as its name 
signifies, to fill any deficiencies in equipment or per- 
sonnel. Though this scheme of organization was quite 
generally adhered to in the A. E. F., each camp in the 
United States devoted to motor-transport activities 
may be said to have combined the functions of Recep- 
tion, Organization, and Replacement Parks under a 
single head. 

The present organization of the Field Service units 
of the Motor Transport Corps is as follows: the per- 
sonnel of a motor-transport company consists of a 
first lieutenant, a second lieutenant, eight sergeants, 
forty-four privates (ten first-class), and two cooks; 
the equipment consists of a light open motor-car, a 




Photograph by Signal Corps, U. S. A . ''^^^ 

MOBILE MACHINE-SHOP OPERATING IN A VILLAGE UNDER SHELL FIRE. 




PI nliKraph by Signal Cntp^, U. S. A. 

SUPPLY OF MOTOR TIRES. 




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"GET THERE!" 435 

motorcycle with side-car, twenty-nine cargo trucks, 
including one for light repair and one for company 
supply, two tank trucks, and a rolling kitchen. A 
motorcycle company has a first lieutenant, a second 
lieutenant, six sergeants, a corporal, thirty privates, 
first-class, and a cook, together with thirty-two motor- 
cycles with side-cars, and two cargo trucks. A head- 
quarters motor command is in charge of a captain, who 
has two first lieutenants, a second lieutenant, five ser- 
geants, four corporals, and two privates, first-class; 
the rolling-stock includes two heavy motor-cars, two 
light closed cars, one light open car, one cargo truck, 
and two motorcycles with side-cars. Though there 
are no tables of organization for the larger units of the 
Motor Transport Corps, a Supply Train is composed 
of a headquarters motor command and not less than 
two or more than six motor-transport companies. 

So much space has been devoted in the newspapers 
and magazines to the exploits of the combatant arms 
of the service that the public has heard little, if any- 
thing, of the less spectacular but no less arduous and 
important work of the men who wore the purple hat- 
cords of the M. T. C. 

It was their endurance and resourcefulness which 
made possible the transfer by road to the St. Mihiel 
and Argonne sectors, in nineteen days, of more than 
half a million men, and this in spite of the unprece- 
dented congestion as a result of the preparations in 
progress for the great offensives. It was the tireless, 
iron-hard drivers of the M. T. C. who got forward the 
food for the men and the food for the guns. It was 



436 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

the despatch-riders of the corps who, jeering at death, 
deHvered the vital messages which were intrusted to 
them, tearing down the steel-swept, shell-pocked roads 
at express- train speed on their roaring motorcycles. 
No mud was too deep, no shell-storm too violent, no 
road too dangerous to stop the men of the M. T. C. 
They went wherever their wheels could find traction — 
and in some places where they could not. They did 
not possess so much as a bowing acquaintance with 
either fatigue or fear. They were the newest corps in 
the army and they made their own traditions. They 
were as unconventional in their methods of doing things 
as the old-time army teamster, the stage-coach driver, 
and the pony-express rider, whose qualities they have 
inherited and whose lineal descendants they are. 
When in doubt they stepped on the accelerator, for the 
motto of the Motor Transport Corps is ''Get There .'" 



i 



X 

MENDERS OF MEN 

BENEATH the crest of the British Royal Artillery 
appears the word " Ubique^' — "Everywhere." It 
is a motto which might more fittingly be applied to the 
Medical Department of our own army, however, for 
that corps has its representatives in every branch of 
the service — on land, afloat, and in the air. It di- 
rected the designing and production of our first gas- 
masks and from it was drawn the nucleus of our orig- 
inal Gas Defense Service. It provided the medical 
staffs for the hospital ships and for the army trans- 
ports. By means of the ingenious system of tests 
which it devised, it selected our flying-men, determined 
on the form of aviation work for which they were 
mentally and physically fitted, and, by a system of 
unceasing observation, kept them constantly in condi- 
tion to fight the Boche in the skies. It organized an 
ambulance service which won the admiration of the 
world. No battery or battalion went into action 
without its quota of medical officers, who shared all the 
perils and privations of their comrades of the line and 
worked longer. Only two units in the American Army 
were granted by the French the coveted distinction of 
wearing the fourragere: one of them was an Air Ser- 
vice squadron, the other a unit of the Sanitary Corps 
of the Army Medical Department. Our medical offi- 
cers were actually the first in the field and the first to 

437 



438 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

sustain wounds; the first American killed after the 
declaration of war was a medical officer. 

A Kst of the Medical Department's activities would 
include the Dental Corps, the Sanitary Corps, the 
Veterinary Corps, the Nurse Corps; laboratories for 
the study and prevention of infectious diseases; or- 
ganizations for the isolation and the special care of the 
tuberculous, the insane, the victims of war neuroses; 
convalescent centres and sanatoria; a division of 
psychology for gauging the mental capabilities of the 
army's enlisted personnel; a division of physical re- 
construction for the rehabilitation of the sick and 
wounded; a hospital division which planned and 
equipped hospitals to meet the constantly increasing 
needs of the army; a motion-picture industry which 
enabled the staffs of the various hospitals to see de- 
picted on a screen the latest methods of surgery and 
medicine and which also illustrated to the soldier 
the danger of breaking sanitary regulations; the pub- 
lication of a chain of hospital papers to strengthen the 
morale of the soldier patients; a system, working in co- 
operation with the War Risk Insurance Bureau and the 
Adjutant-General's Office, designed to expedite the 
settlement of war claims, and a remarkable statistical 
classification of the sick and wounded, including 
a complete medical history of each individual case. 
To this array of extraordinary activities must be added, 
of course, the features usual to any well-organized med- 
ical department: services of internal medicine and 
surgery working in the closest harmony in every hos- 
pital unit; divisions of head surgery (including eye, ear, 



MENDERS OF MEN 439 

nose, and throat), orthopedics, urology, and Roent- 
genology; and finally that vast organization for the 
care of the wounded whose operations began with the 
stretcher-bearers out in No Man's Land and ended only 
when the men had passed out of the great general hos- 
pitals in the homeland with the wound-chevrons on 
their sleeves. 

When, in the past, we have been suddenly con- 
fronted by the necessity of making war, we have had 
to do our organizing after the beginning of hostilities. 
And, though the titanic conflict had been in progress for 
more than two years and a half before we entered it, 
we ran true to form, being as unprepared for war from 
a medical standpoint as we were from an ordnance, 
an artillery, or an aviation, point of view. Barring 
the superficial experience gained by some of our medical 
officers during the mobilization on the Mexican border, 
our medical preparations were all made after war had 
been declared. This unpreparedness was not the fault 
of the heads of the Medical Department, mind you; 
it was not due to carelessness or lack of foresight, but 
was, instead, the logical result of a deliberate policy 
of those who held that to be prepared for war was to in- 
vite war. When the war-cloud broke, it became neces- 
sary, therefore, to build overnight, and virtually from 
the ground up, a mammoth and highly complex or- 
ganization. When war was declared, the Medical De- 
partment, including the Medical Corps, the Dental 
Corps, the Veterinary Corps, and their respective 
reserves, had barely 700 commissioned officers on duty 
in the United States and its possessions. Though the 



440 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

regular Medical Corps included many officers whose 
achievements had contributed very largely to the 
prevention of disease and the amelioration of suffering 
in all parts of the world — it has been said of former 
Surgeon-General Gorgas that he "made the Canal 
possible and the tropics habitable" — and though these 
officers were skilled in preventive medicine, field sanita- 
tion, and other phases of the work of the army surgeon, 
there was, after all, only a handful of them. It became 
necessary, therefore, to provide, on the instant, not only 
for an enormously augmented personnel but also for new 
and unconsidered conditions. An ambulance service 
had to be organized and vehicles for it had to be de- 
signed and manufactured; hospital trains had to be 
built — there was only one in the United States when the 
war began ; antiseptic methods in field surgery had to 
be devised as a substitute for the complete surgical 
cleanliness possible only under peace conditions; a 
system had to be devised and put in operation which 
would insure the prompt collection of the wounded on 
the battle-field and their rapid evacuation; measures 
had to be taken for the reconstruction of the severely 
wounded and their training for future efficiency in civil 
life. 

Beginning, as I have already said, with a peace- 
time personnel of barely 700 officers, and a peace-time 
organization, the Medical Department expanded as the 
army expanded, until, when the Armistice was signed, it 
was serving 4,000,000 American soldiers at home and 
overseas and had, in addition, spread its safeguards 
over miUions more of the civil population on both sides 



MENDERS OF MEN 441 

of the Atlantic. Several years prior to the war there 
had been organized a Medical Reserve Corps which in- 
cluded in its membership many prominent physicians 
and surgeons. The National Guards of the several 
States also had their respective medical organizations. 
The Medical Department at the outbreak of the war 
consisted, therefore, of nine corps : the Medical Corps, 
the Medical Reserve Corps, the Medical Corps of the 
National Guard, the Dental Corps, the Dental Reserve 
Corps, the Dental Corps of the National Guard, the 
Veterinary Corps, the Veterinary Reserve Corps, and 
the Veterinary Corps of the National Guard, to which 
were added before the war had been in progress a month 
a Medical Corps, National Army, a Veterinary Corps, 
National Army, a Sanitary Corps, and an Ambulance 
Corps, making a total of thirteen distinct services in 
the Medical Department. By the act of August 7, 
191 7, however, all of the above were merged into the 
Medical Corps, United States Army, thereby greatly 
simplifying administration. But it was quickly real- 
ized that, even by calling to the colors every medical 
officer in the Reserve Corps and the National Guard, the 
personnel would still fall far short of the number re- 
quired to provide for the proper care and treatment of 
the enormous armies which were rapidly being placed 
in the field, for already the Secretary of War had made 
his celebrated remark: "Why stop with an army of 
5,000,000 men?" Some conception of the problem 
confronting the surgeon-general may be had when I 
explain that the Medical Department was expected to 
furnish each infantry division with approximately in 



442 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

officers and 1,400 enlisted men. In addition, an enor- 
mous number of medical officers was required for the 
camp, base, and general hospitals which were springing 
up like mushrooms, almost in a night, throughout the 
land. In order to obtain these officers it became neces- 
sary, therefore, to appeal to the medical profession of 
the United States and to the various medical societies, 
the American Medical Association taking a particularly 
energetic and enthusiastic part in the work of recruiting. 
The response of the medical men of America was as 
prompt as it was gratifying. Specialists whose names 
were as f amihar to the public as those of Cabinet officers 
and who for a single operation received fees equal to 
the annual salary of an ambassador; obscure country 
practitioners who made their daily rounds in mud- 
bespattered buggies and who, as often as not, received 
their pay — when they received it at all — ^in produce; 
prosperous middle-aged physicians with established 
and lucrative city practices; struggling young internes; 
lecturers on medicine and surgery at universities and 
colleges, put aside their private affairs and offered 
their services to the nation. So universal was the re- 
sponse, indeed, that numerous communities found 
themselves facing the prospect of being wholly without 
medical attendance, for all their physicians were in or 
were trying to get into khaki. 

The same patriotic enthusiasm was shown by the 
dental profession. At the outbreak of the war there 
were only 86 dental officers in the Regular Army, this 
number being based upon the ratio of one dentist to 
each thousand enhsted men. And, though the im- 



'menders of men 443 

portance of a clean, healthy mouth was fully recognized 
as being essential in maintaining the health of the in- 
dividual soldier, no Dental Reserve Corps existed at 
this time. It was evident from the very beginning, 
therefore, that, in order to care for the teeth of millions 
of fighting-men, it would be necessary to strain to the 
very limit the resources of the dental profession. 
Moreover, before the war had been in progress half a 
year, it was found necessary to raise the authorized 
quota of one dentist to every thousand men to one 
dentist to every 500 men. But the dentists lagged 
not a whit behind their fellows of the medical profes- 
sion, so that when Germany threw up her hands and 
cried "Kamerad!" there were 6,284 officers in the 
Dental Corps. 

When the Secretary of State intimated to the Ger- 
man Ambassador that his immediate departure for 
the Fatherland would cause no tears, there were barely 
400 members of the Army Nurse Corps, 170 of whom 
were reserve nurses, having been called into active 
service as a result of the mobilization on the border. 
Yet when the war ended, the corps carried on its rolls 
the names of 21,480 nurses, nearly half of whom were 
serving overseas. As long as a veteran of the Great 
War lives, the work of these young women will be re- 
ferred to with something akin to reverence. They dis- 
played a courage, self-sacrifice, and devotion beyond all 
praise. Among them were capable, experienced execu- 
tives who wore on the breasts of their trim blue jackets 
ribbons showing that they had seen previous service 
in Cuba, in the Philippines, and on the Mexican border. 



444 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

Others, hundreds upon hundreds of them, came from 
the hospitals of the larger cities. But by far the greater 
number of them were graduate nurses who left assured 
and lucrative private employment for the fatigues, the 
discomforts, and ofttimes the dangers, of army work- 
Nurses with wide executive experience were brought 
into the service as chief nurses of the great army hos- 
pitals, some of which had from 300 to 600 nurses on 
their staffs while the influenza epidemic was at its 
height. Their work in this emergency requires no com- 
ment, for they were untiring in their efforts, taking no 
heed of the number of hours they worked and frequently 
staying at their posts until they dropped from exhaus- 
tion. During the epidemic 127 nurses died in this 
country and 35 overseas from influenza or pneumonia 
resulting from it. Though a number of American 
nurses have been decorated by foreign governments, our 
own government has seen fit to recognize the heroism of 
only four: Miss Beatrice McDonald, who received the 
D. S. C. for staying by her patients when the hospital 
in which she was on duty was bombed by German air- 
men, though severely wounded herself, Miss Helen 
G. McClelland, Miss Isabelle Stambaugh, and Miss 
Julia Stimson, who received the D. S. M. 

Meanwhile the enlisted personnel had increased 
enormously. At the outbreak of the war there were in 
the Medical Department approximately 6,900 men. 
During the nineteen months of hostilities this force 
steadily expanded, the recruits including medical 
students, pharmacists, and others of a medical turn 
of mind. Not every one in the corps had had experi- 



MENDERS OF MEN 445 

ence in medicine or kindred subjects, however; the chief 
orderly at the hospital in which I was in France had 
been one of the editors of Vanity Fair, another had been 
engaged in the importing business, and one of the en- 
listed men at Fort McHenry Hospital, Baltimore, was 
a motion-picture actor whose features are known to 
''movie" fans all over the United States. The Medical 
Corps reached its maximum strength in November, 
1 918, when its records showed a total of 264,181 officers 
and men. Thus it will be seen that the personnel of 
the Medical Corps alone at the close of the Great War 
was much greater than that of the entire Regular Army 
before the beginning of hostilities. 

The Medical Corps naturally divides itself into two 
main branches: the Division of Surgery and the Divi- 
sion of Internal Medicine. The latter, as its name 
indicates, deals almost entirely with non-surgical 
diseases and conditions; in other words, medicine as 
distinguished from the knife. One of the principal 
functions of the Division of Internal Medicine con- 
sisted in obtaining, training, if necessary, and assigning 
to duty in the various hospitals and camps expert 
examiners in diseases of the heart and lungs, these 
officers being charged with the duty of determining the 
fitness of recruits for military service and their con- 
dition on discharge, with special reference to heart 
disease and tuberculosis. This latter phase of their 
work assumed such important proportions, however, 
that it was eventually taken over by a separate divi- 
sion. Another function of the division was to obtain 
mature and highly trained internists of long experience 



446 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

to serve as Chiefs of Medical Service in base and 
general hospitals, these officers, who included many of 
the ablest physicians in the United States, being re- 
sponsible for the professional care of all medical pa- 
tients. For a time a school was maintained to train 
these medical chiefs, practically all of whom were 
fresh from civil practice, in the details of army-hospital 
administration. Younger men, usually with little or 
no hospital experience and, therefore, less highly quali- 
fied, were assigned to serve under the medical chiefs 
as ward surgeons in direct charge of sick soldiers. A 
small number of highly experienced men were also 
brought into the service as medical consultants, their 
duties being to visit the various hospitals and to main- 
tain helpful and sympathetic relations between the 
medical staffs and the surgeon-general in Washington. 
The above is, of course, merely a hasty sketch of the 
great work done by the medical internists. The vast 
majority of them were desperately anxious for service 
in France and moved heaven and earth to obtain over- 
seas assignments, being bitterly disappointed when they 
found that the needs of the army required that they 
should remain on duty in the homeland. By compari- 
son with those of their fellows who were serving within 
sound and often within range of the guns, domestic 
service seemed quiet and prosaic. But, as a matter of 
fact, there was nothing commonplace about it at any 
time. The nearest approach to it was after the Armis- 
tice, when the main impulse and motive for military 
service, the winning of the war, became a thing of the 
past. But during the continuance of the war the 



I 



MENDERS OF MEN 447 

medical officer, whether his duties kept him on the fir- 
ing-Hne itself, in the camp and base hospitals in the 
rear, far from the thunder of the cannon, or at the can- 
tonments on this side of the Atlantic, never had reason 
to complain of his work being monotonous or uninter- 
esting, for every day, almost every hour, indeed, 
brought new experiences and new problems. I doubt 
if there is a single officer who wore the uniform of the 
Medical Corps who will not willingly admit that his 
army work better fitted him for civil practice and af- 
forded him a deeper understanding of the needs of 
suffering humanity. 

The great and crowded days of the medical intern- 
ist in the United States came with the influenza epi- 
demic. Thrilling, trying, and tragic was this period. 
At first in driblets, then in streams which increased 
with appalling rapidity, the men poured into the hos- 
pitals. In civil life a hospital with 250 beds is con- 
sidered a very considerable institution and one of which 
the community it serves has reason to boast, yet the 
great base hospitals, sometimes with as many as 2,500 
beds, were literally swamped with new cases, occasion- 
ally as many as 1,000 "flu" patients being brought in 
during a single day. These men had to be cared for 
and carried through. But how? Not only were there 
not enough hospitals in the land to hold them, but the 
medical profession, already drained of its practitioners 
by the demands of the army overseas, was unable to 
find enough, or nearly enough, physicians, nurses, and 
attendants, for the influenza, remember, showed no 
discrimination, attacking soldiers and civilians alike. 



448 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

When the epidemic descended upon the cantonments, 
barracks near the hospitals were taken over by the 
medical authorities, the well men being evacuated to 
tents in favor of the sick. In many instances buildings 
which did not have a stick of furniture in them in the 
morning were ready to receive patients by mid-after- 
noon. In the meantime cots, pillows, sheets, and blan- 
kets, three or four to each cot, had been moved in. 
Medicines, glasses, and aU the other paraphernalia 
of modern medicine had been obtained. Fires had been 
started. Cooks, stoves, cooking utensils, food, and 
dishes appeared as at the wave of a magician's wand. 
Medical officers and nurses had been assigned and had 
reported for duty. The Red Cross and other war ser- 
vice agencies were on hand. Arrangements had been 
made to care for the clothing and valuables of the 
patients and a hundred other details had received 
attention. And all this, mind you, in a few short hours. 
Surgical officers volunteered for medical service. Offi- 
cers from the training-camps of the Medical Corps were 
sent by tens and twenties to help out. Every city, 
town, and village between the oceans was combed for 
nurses. There were not enough ambulances to trans- 
port the sick, so private motor-cars, taxicabs, even 
motor-trucks, were pressed into use. The drivers sat 
at their steering-wheels day and night until they could 
no longer keep their eyes open. Medical officers were 
on duty from daybreak until long after midnight, day 
after day, week after week. Nurses and orderlies kept 
at their work until they dropped from sheer exhaustion. 
This was the home equivalent of battle service. No 



MENDERS OF MEN 449 

sterner, no more gallant, resistance to the Hun assaults 
was ever made by the men on the firing-line in France 
than the battle which was waged against an equally 
formidable, equally treacherous, enemy by the men 
and women who wore on their sleeves the silver chevrons 
of home service. 

The Division of Tuberculosis is one of the four 
branches of the Division of Internal Medicine, it being 
the only division that has to do with a single disease. 
This is due to the fact that tuberculosis is admitted the 
world over to be the most prevalent disease known, one 
out of every seven of the earth's inhabitants dying from 
some form of it. In order to detect the presence and 
combat the spread in the army of the Great White 
Plague, the Medical Corps very early in the war took 
steps to standardize the chest examinations of soldiers, 
all recruits being examined upon their arrival at the 
camps according to the standard thus devised by doc- 
tors who were specialists in tubercular troubles. These 
measures resulted in excluding from the army about 
80,000 cases of active tuberculosis. Had the methods 
pursued in former wars been adhered to, a considerable 
proportion of these would undoubtedly have escaped 
detection, and, as tuberculosis is a highly communica- 
ble disease, thousands of perfectly healthy men would 
have become infected. Most of these tubercular cases 
would have had their disease aggravated by field ser- 
vice, and, moreover, the resources of the Medical Corps 
would have been heavily taxed had it been called upon 
to treat so large a number of patients. Soldiers who 
were suspected of having tuberculosis, or who developed 



450 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

it while in the service, were examined by specialists, 
who confirmed or rejected the original diagnosis, those 
who were found to have the disease being immediately 
sent to special hospitals or sanatoria for treatment. 
The location of these sanatoria in such recognized and 
widely scattered health resorts as Asheville, North 
Carolina, Denver, Colorado, the Catskill Mountains, 
Arizona, and New Mexico enabled the medical authori- 
ties to send the soldier patients to regions which, as 
experience has taught, promote recovery from the dis- 
ease, and which were at the same time as close as possi- 
ble to their homes. Patients sent to these hospitals 
were not discharged from the service until they were 
cured or until the maximum improvement had been 
obtained. Thus soldiers received treatment which few 
civilians could afford, no multimillionaire being able to 
purchase better medical attention than that which 
Uncle Sam gave his boys. As tuberculosis is a chronic 
disease, and as a certain number of cases will relapse 
after its progress has apparently been arrested, special 
efforts were made to teach the patients how to live in 
order to prevent further retrogression, particular em- 
phasis also being laid on the necessity of observing the 
sanitary precautions which will prevent the transmis- 
sion of the tubercular germs from the patient to the 
members of his family. 

Though for a number of years prior to the war there 
had been a steadily increasing appreciation of the im- 
portance of neurology and psychiatry in the organiza- 
tion of a fighting-machine, the theories which had been 
evolved along these lines were never put into practice, 



MENDERS OF MEN 451 

at least on a large scale, until America's entry into the 
great conflict, when there was organized the Neuro- 
psychiatric Section of the Division of Internal Medi- 
cine. When the section was created, about fifty neuro- 
psychiatric officers were commissioned; when the 
Armistice was signed, this number had risen to nearly 
700. The chief function of the section was the exclusion 
from the army, by means of special tests, of men who, 
because of mental and nervous diseases, were consid- 
ered unfit for military service. At first this section was 
treated with open derision or contemptuous tolerance 
by certain of the narrow-minded or the prejudiced — 
for the Medical Corps, like all other branches of the 
army, is not without its fogies who regard with suspicion 
anything that is new. The best proof of the success of 
its work, however, is the fact that it discovered the 
presence in the army, at home and overseas, of more 
than 72,000 men suffering from nervous and mental 
disorders, every one of whom was a potential menace 
to our success as long as he remained in active service. 
Thanks to the simple but highly effective tests which 
the psychiatrists devised, certain men were discovered 
to be moral perverts; the tests showed that others, if 
exposed to the strain of battle, probably would have 
suffered mental collapse, and that still others did not 
possess a sufficiently developed mentality to under- 
stand or to carry out orders. Imagine how grave a 
menace a single pervert might have proved to the 
morals of the men with whom he was associated in the 
intimacy of army life. Picture the danger to the suc- 
cess of a military operation of a single soldier who did 



452 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

not possess sufficient intelligence to understand the 
orders which were given him or the courage to carry 
them out. Such men were of far greater potential 
danger to the welfare of the army than were those 
suffering from tuberculosis. By means of the psychi- 
atric tests given at the camps and cantonments, more 
than I per cent of all the men brought into the army 
by the draft were discovered to be mentally unfit and 
were at once rejected. On the other hand, many 
drafted men were found to possess exceptional mental 
qualifications and were thus marked out for assign- 
ments where their special aptitudes would prove of the 
greatest value, in many cases being recommended for 
the officers' training-camps. This was the first war in 
which mental tests have been employed. Men with 
undeveloped minds, unstable nervous systems, or in- 
adequate self-control are very bad risks for armies. 
They are unknown quantities and their behavior in 
moments of stress cannot be relied upon. Such men 
may cause disaster in action, they are liable to shell- 
shock, and they are likely to swell the lists of pension 
claimants. But the psychological tests, though they 
did not entirely eliminate these dangers, certainly re- 
duced them to a minimum, enabling line-officers to 
equalize the mental strength of their commands by the 
reassignment or transfer of men to less exacting duties, 
or, in the case of those who were actually feeble-minded, 
securing their discharge from the army and returning 
them to their homes. 

To the Division of Laboratories and Infectious 
Diseases were assigned the duties of ascertaining the 



MENDERS OF MEN 453 

causes of communicable diseases and of establishing 
methods for their control. The immensely important 
work of this division was handled by five sections, as 
follows: (i) The Section of Laboratories, whose duty 
it was to furnish and train personnel, supervise the work 
of the laboratories, and standardize the equipment. 
(2) The Section of Epidemiology, which followed the 
progress of disease and recommended measures of con- 
trol. (3) The Section of Urology and Dermatology, 
which was specially charged with the treatment of ve- 
nereal disease. (4) The Section on Combating Venereal 
Diseases, which elaborated and executed measures for 
educating the soldier on this subject, for the enforce- 
ment of legal measures against immoral conditions, and 
for venereal prophylaxis or early treatment. (5) The 
Army Medical Museum, which collected pathological 
material and other specimens of interest to medical 
men, the scope of its activities being greatly enlarged 
by the formation of an organization for collecting ma- 
terial in the field. 

The problems handled by the Division of Lab- 
oratories and Infectious Diseases were both varied 
and vitally important in preventing wastage of troops. 
The view held by the experts of the division that the 
enteric group of diseases, which wrought such havoc in 
other wars, could be controlled by typhoid and para- 
typhoid inoculation and by adequate sanitary mea- 
sures, was confirmed by the fact that, though typhoid 
occurred in the devastated and extremely insanitary 
regions along the Western Front, it never became a 
serious menace to the American Army. With the prac- 



454 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

tical elimination of the enteric diseases, the respiratory 
diseases provided the most important problem for the 
Medical Department. The most vigorous measures 
were pursued in studying and attempting to control 
the incidence and mortality of respiratory diseases, 
and many facts were ascertained which proved of great 
value during the period of operations and which, 
when the lessons to be drawn from them have received 
sufficient study, will eventually place in our hands more 
adequate means of control. Epidemic cerebrospinal 
meningitis is another disease which always has to be 
feared when troops are mobilized. Infection is trans- 
mitted by the discharges from the respiratory passages, 
usually being disseminated by ''carriers," who spread 
the disease without having it themselves. In order to 
detect these "carriers," any one of whom might unin- 
tentionally create as much havoc as an enemy agent in 
a munitions plant, hundreds of thousands of men were 
examined, our knowledge of the methods by which the 
disease is transmitted being thereby greatly increased. 
The problem presented by the venereal diseases has 
always been of vital interest to all armies and the fight 
against this class of infections has been vigorously waged 
in the American Army for many years. With the pas- 
sage of the Draft Act it became evident that it would be 
necessary to extend the fight to the civilian population 
not only because it was a source of infection of the army 
but in order to diminish the occurrence of these diseases 
among drafted men. To accomplish this a close al- 
liance was formed between the Section on Combating 
Venereal Diseases of the Medical Department and the 




FIELD-HOSPITAL. 




AN INFECTIOUS WARD. 




CLEAR. FILTERED. DISINFECTED \V.\TER. 
Complete water-purification plant and laboratory on truck, known as the "steri-lab." 




U.VFER STATION ON THE WESTERN FRONT. 
The hose of a "steri-lab" can be seen in the foreground. 



MENDERS OF MEN 455 

War Department's Commission on Training Camp Ac- 
tivities. The methods pursued in preventing venereal 
diseases aimed, first, at diminishing exposure to infec- 
tion, and, second, at giving medical treatment to sol- 
diers who have been exposed in order to prevent the de- 
velopment of the disease. One of the most immediately 
effective measures in preventing exposure was the re- 
pression of prostitution and its ally, the liquor traffic, in 
the neighborhood of army camps and to a lesser degree 
throughout the country. The surgeon-general assigned 
specially qualified officers of the Sanitary Corps, mostly 
lawyers, to the Law Enforcement Division of the 
Commission on Training Camp Activities, with orders 
to see that the federal and local laws against prostitu- 
tion and liquor-selling were rigidly enforced. The re- 
sults exceeded all expectations. In a year and a half 
about 130 red-light districts were closed at the instiga- 
tion of these officers working in the name of the Law 
Enforcement Division. Street- walking and the con- 
nivance of lodging-house and hotel-keepers, taxicab 
drivers, and others was kept down. Trained women 
social workers, experts in the management of reforma- 
tories and detention houses, and civilian investigators 
co-operated with the military authorities in the work. 
Seven hundred and fifty cities and towns were investi- 
gated and a thorough clean-up was made in 453. 
As a result of this work, it is estimated that to-day not 
more than five openly recognized red-light districts remain 
in tJte whole United States. It has repeatedly been as- 
serted that military fife is conducive to immorality and 
that the army reeks with venereal diseases. This 



456 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

charge is effectually disposed of by the statement that 
of a total of approximately 225,000 cases of venereal 
disease found to exist in the army, 200,000 were con- 
tracted before enlistment. 

The Division of Surgery is subdivided into sec- 
tions of General Surgery, Orthopedic Surgery, Head 
Surgery, and Genito-Urinary Surgery. In each of the 
forty-five army hospitals in the United States a surgical 
service is maintained, the chief surgeon and his assis- 
tants having practically the same freedom of judgment 
in deciding upon the kind of treatment that is to be 
pursued that they would exercise in civilian institutions. 
To some extent, however, the matter of treatment is 
governed by the rules laid down in the Army Medical 
Manual and the regulations established by the Surgeon- 
General's Office. Thus, each month a duplicate of the 
record of every operation performed, a list of the pa- 
tients who have died and the reasons for their deaths, 
and a list of the supplies used by the surgical service 
must be sent to Washington. In addition, the hospital 
must report upon the number of patients received from 
overseas and the character of their injuries, and the 
number of cases of peripheral nerve, empyema, frac- 
tures, osteomyelitis, etc., which are in the hospital, 
together with the classification of the stage of the dis- 
ease, that is, whether it is improving, whether it is sta- 
tionary, or whether it will require operation. In this 
way the Division of Surgery is enabled to maintain a 
supervision over the operation of each hospital with- 
out interfering with its actual workings. In other 
words, the surgical service is permitted to exercise its 



MENDERS OF MEN 457 

own judgment untrammelled and without interference, 
but it must render a faithful report of all its doings. 
These monthly returns are carefully scrutinized in 
Washington and the work of the entire surgical per- 
sonnel is carefully watched and card-catalogued. 
Monthly reports from the various commanding officers 
and from consultants, as well as information picked up 
here and there, are entered on these cards, so that no 
officer can remain for any length of time in the surgical 
service without the department knowing exactly what 
he is doing and having a very accurate estimate of his 
ability. 

When war was declared, the army possessed in the 
United States two hospitals for general cases, one for 
tuberculosis, one for rheumatism, and 113 post hospi- 
tals, with a total capacity of 6,665 beds. In order to 
meet the anticipated needs of our great new armies a 
vast programme of hospital construction was started 
in August, 191 7, and, though it was greatly curtailed 
after the sudden collapse of the German war-machine, 
by March, 191 9, the Medical Department had at its 
disposal in the United States alone a total of 130,564 
beds. In other words, the capacity of our army hos- 
pitals was increased 1,850 per cent in twenty months — 
a record which is, I imagine, without parallel in the 
history of medicine. The total number of medical 
officers, nurses, and enlisted men on duty in these 
hospitals during the period of the war was equal to the 
population of Albany, New York, and the number of 
cases which were treated — 2,000,000 in all — ^was equiv- 
alent to the total population of Chicago. These 



458 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

gigantic hospitals, with their cool, clean wards, their 
ridge ventilation, their wide corridors, their elaborate 
heating, lighting, water, and fire-fighting systems, are 
not surpassed by any civil hospitals of their size in the 
world. To realize this, one has only to visit them. 
Indeed, it is not the slightest exaggeration to say that 
the American soldier received the most expensive kind 
of medical treatment, in hospitals of the finest type, 
at the hands of physicians and surgeons many of whom 
had given up princely incomes and leisurely lives in 
order to work eighteen hours out of the twenty-four at 
a captain's or major's pay. 

It did not take the Medical Department many 
months to realize that it not only had on its hands 
thousands of sick and wounded soldiers but it also had 
the great American public — and the public required the 
most careful and tactful handling. Before we had been 
at war a year every conceivable sort of rumor in regard 
to the way in which the men in the hospitals were being 
treated was making the rounds. It was whispered 
that they did not get enough to eat, that they were 
not properly clad, that the physicians played poker and 
the nurses danced while their patients lay dying, that 
out-of-date methods of treatment were the rule, that 
the medical officers were incapable or overbearing. 
No rumor seemed too fantastic to receive credence. 
One woman ahghted from her limousine at the en- 
trance to the Walter Reed Hospital in Washington and 
asked to be shown the "basket cases." Upon being 
asked by the puzzled attendants what she meant, she 
explained that she wished to see the soldiers who had 



MENDERS OF MEN 459 

lost both legs and arms, and who, she understood, were 
kept in baskets ! And she was quite frankly sceptical 
when assured that neither at Walter Reed nor at any 
other mihtary hospital in the United States was there 
a soldier who had lost both of his legs and both of his 
arms. In order to combat such ridiculous and harmful 
stories, to keep the pubUc informed of the splendid 
treatment which the soldiers were receiving, and to 
cheer up the depressed and lonely soldiers themselves, 
the Publicity Section of the Surgeon- General's Ofi&ce 
established a series of hospital papers which covered 
the entire country. The Come-Back, edited and 
published at the Walter Reed Hospital, Washington, 
D. C, jumped in one issue to the ranks of the big dailies 
and steadily held its place in everything — news, edi- 
torials, cartoons, advertising, and circulation — that 
makes a successful newspaper. The Right About, 
published by the patients of Debarkation Hospital 
No. 3, located in the former Greenhut store in New York 
City, soon ran up a circulation of more than 50,000 — • 
at five cents a copy, too. Among the other papers was 
The Trouble Buster, published at Fort McHenry 
Hospital, Baltimore; The Ward Healer, at General 
Hospital No. 12, Biltmore, North CaroUna; The Pill 
Box, at Debarkation Hospital No. i, ElUs Island; 
The Reclaimer, General Hospital No. 34, East Nor- 
folk, Massachusetts; The Stimulant, General Hos- 
pital No. 19, Lakewood, New Jersey, and a score or 
more of others with equally amusing names. The 
joyous, humorous, American spirit of these papers set 
a fashion of good cheer and sportsmanship among the 



46o THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

patients, their attitude being characterized by the slo- 
gan shouted from the top of the first page of one of 
them: "The Come-Back chirps so loud that nobody 
has the nerve to growl." 

Even before the first of the constantly growing 
streams of wounded began to trickle home from France, 
it was recognized by the Medical Department that a 
system must be devised and put into operation whereby 
these men, instead of being mended and turned loose to 
shift for themselves as best they could, must be carried 
along, receiving treatment and pay, until they had at- 
tained the maximum degree of physical and functional 
restoration. For a quarter of a century after the close 
of the Civil War the streets of American cities were 
filled with disabled men who eked out their scanty pen- 
sions by selling shoe-laces, pencils, novelties, or by beg- 
ging, because no intelligent measures had been taken to 
refit them for their former occupations or to fit them 
for new ones. It was determined that this condition 
must not occur again. The plan for physical recon- 
struction of the soldiers, as ultimately adopted, was 
simple, direct, and effective. It involved primarily 
the establishment of an administrative organization 
known as the Division of Physical Reconstruction, di- 
vided into departments of physiotherapy and educa- 
tion. Certain subdepartments were also made neces- 
sary by the special requirements of those soldiers who 
had lost their speech, their hearing, or their sight. 
The sympathy and interest aroused by this work 
throughout the country quickly drew into it as officers 
or advisers many men eminent in those walks of life 



MENDERS OF MEN 461 

which best fitted them for the exacting duties demanded 
by this service. The work of physical reconstruction 
has been eminently successful in its effect upon the dis- 
abled soldier, bringing him to a realization that, how- 
ever great and disheartening his impairment, he might 
hope for usefulness, happiness, and self-support in the 
future, and in many cases leading to the adoption of a 
new and better vocation and a better standing in life. 
I knew one man who had had both legs blown off by a 
shell at Chateau-Thierry. He was a young, fine-look- 
ing, exceptionally intelligent fellow, but, with the 
prospect of spending the rest of his days in a wheel- 
chair staring him in the face, he had sunk to the depths 
of misery and discouragement. But one day one of 
the experts of the reconstruction service sat down be- 
side his bed, offered him a cigarette, and started a 
conversation. 

"What did you do before you went into the 
army?" the reconstructionist inquired. 

"I was a carpenter," the man answered. "Made 
good money, too. But I guess the only thing I'll be 
good for in the future will be peddling shoe-laces," he 
added bitterly. "No one wants a legless man." 

"Ever have any other occupation?" 

"No. I always wanted to be an architect, but my 
people didn't have the money to send me to college, so I 
went to work after I finished high school." 

"Would you like to take up architecture now if 
you could get the training?" the reconstruction expert 
asked. 

"Would I?" the soldier gasped incredulously. 



462 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

"Would I? Say, friend, what's the use of hitting a 
fellow when he's down and out ? " 

''You're not down and out," was the cheery answer. 
''Not by a damned sight ! If you want to be an archi- 
tect, Uncle Sam is ready to give you a chance. He 
will give you an education, and pay you while you are 
getting it, and then he will get you a job. Don't get 
the idea into your head that he has forgotten what he 
owes you boys who have fought for him." 

The last time I saw that soldier he had already 
commenced his architectural education. 

"If he keeps on as well as he has begun," one of his 
instructors told me, "he will make several times as 
much money without any legs as he did with them." 

The educational work starts at the bedside as soon 
as the patient feels the need of some activity or diver- 
sion. Each patient is treated as an individual, an edu- 
cational activity being selected for him which will have 
the greatest curative effect and will at the same time 
present the greatest interest and incentive because of 
the future usefulness which it holds out to him. Sim- 
ple crafts, light, desultory, and diverting, gradually 
give place to more exacting, more purposeful studies 
and occupations. For one man the series may be bead- 
work, mechanical drafting, wood-shop, carpentry; for 
another, knitting, basketry, penmanship, and account- 
ing; for the iUiterate it may be some textile project 
followed by instruction in reading and writing. Since 
the work began, 75,000 men have been enrolled in some 
form of educational work in fifty hospitals. Many have 
regained control of palsied muscles, limbered up stiff- 



MENDERS OF MEN 463 

ened joints, revived dulled mental sensibilities, steadied 
shaken nerves, or obtained improved physical tone by 
the appHcation of these methods. To thousands the 
educational service has brought the discovery that, in 
spite of the handicap of their disabiHties, they possess 
unsuspected ability in certain lines of useful and profit- 
able endeavor, thus substituting hope for despair and 
showing them the way to a useful and contented future. 

M was illiterate ; in fact, he could not sign the 

pay-roU or read the simplest orders; he was bedridden 
with wounds in his shoulder and arm. He came from 
a remote mountain community, where the need of even 
a rudimentary knowledge of the three R's was not 
deemed necessary. For thirty minutes a day for six 
weeks he studied reading, writing, and arithmetic. 
When he was ready for discharge from hospital he was 
able to write short letters, though he found spelKng 
puzzling. In reading he made unusual progress, though 
his oral inflection left something to be desired. His 
greatest pleasure was to receive a letter from his 
brother, who had had five years' schooling but could 

not write as well as M himself, or to write to his 

mother instead of being compelled to ask the other 
boys to write his letters for him. 

Many of the soldiers are coimtry boys and will 
go back to farming when they leave the hospital. For 
them there are courses in farm accounting and work in 
the gas-engine shop and with the hospital's tractor. 
Clerks who were unable to obtain promotion because 
they did not understand stenography and typewriting 
are learning those branches, and some are taking courses 



464 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

in the newest systems of cataloguing and bookkeeping. 
A boy who had lost both legs above the knee be- 
came proficient in Spanish in order that he might assist 
his brother in the management of a ranch near the 
Mexican border. Others are taught woodworking, 
gardening, the operation and repair of gas-engines, 
shoe repairing, oxyacetylene welding, printing, elec- 
trical mechanics, lettering, and drawing. One day 
there was brought into the reconstruction hospital at 
Colonia, New Jersey, a boy whose hands had been 
taken ofif at the wrists. For five weeks he had been 
fed and cared for by any one who happened to be near. 
He was helpless and despondent. The able and ener- 
getic woman in charge of the educational work in his 
ward suggested that if a spoon was fastened to the 
stump of his right arm he would be able to feed himself. 
At first he said that he couldn't, but she insisted on 
his making the attempt. The very next day he called 
to the sergeant who had told him that dinner was 
ready: "I can wait on myself now." Then he devised 
a way to light his own cigarettes. Before long they had 
rigged up a device by which brushes could be fastened 
to his arms and he was set to work painting toys and 
boxes. And he did it remarkably well, everything 
considered. And, what was much more important, he 
whistled as he worked. 

I doubt if any branch of the army did more efficient 
work in its respective line, and received less credit from 
the public, than the Veterinary Corps. This lack of 
appreciation was due, in the first place, to public igno- 
rance of the duties of the corps and of the character of 



MENDERS OF MEN 465 

its personnel. Most people associate a veterinarian 
with the old-time country horse-doctor, of rough man- 
ners and still rougher speech, who was known to every 
man and boy in the countryside as "Doc." The army 
veterinarian is a different genus altogether. He is usu- 
aUy as smart in appearance and as well-set-up as any 
oflScer of the line; he is more often than not a university 
graduate, and his methods of treatment are as modern 
and scientific as those of a surgeon or a medical special- 
ist. The impression also seems to prevail that, as a 
result of the wholesale motorization of artillery and 
transport and the enormous use of aircraft, animals 
played but a small part in the Great War, and that 
consequently the army veterinarian enjoyed something 
akin to a sinecure. As a matter of fact, nothing could 
be further from the truth. Probably you were not 
aware that when the war ended, the United States Army 
possessed close to half a million horses and mules — 
the exact figure was, I believe, about 470,000 — and was 
purchasing hundreds of more daily. Not only was the 
task of inspecting and supervising the care of this great 
body of animals an enormous one, but, as a result of 
the extreme scarcity of horse-flesh — ^for buyers for the 
European armies had almost drained the markets of 
the world before we entered the war — and because of 
the lack of tonnage, the animals of the A. E. F. were, as 
a divisional commander expressed it in a general order, 
"worth their weight in gold." 

Prior to 1916 there were only about 75 veterina- 
rians in the entire army, but with the passage during 
that year of the National Defense Act the number of 



466 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

veterinarians at the call of the government was ma- 
terially increased by the creation of the Veterinary 
Reserve Corps. The Veterinary Corps, like other 
branches of the service, kept pace with the expansion of 
the army, and when the Armistice was signed it had 
on duty 2,200 officers and an enlisted force of more than 
21,000 men. 

When an animal is first led before a purchasing 
commission its relation to the Veterinary Corps begins. 
Every horse and mule must be examined by a veter- 
inary officer for soundness and freedom from physical 
defects before it can be purchased. As soon as the 
purchased animals have arrived at the various remount 
depots they become the objects of unceasing attention 
by the Veterinary Corps, whose duty it is to keep them 
free from disease and in the highest state of efficiency. 
This work includes the sanitary inspection of stables, 
picket-lines, forage and bedding, methods of feeding, 
watering, grooming, and shoeing, the detection and seg- 
regation of communicable diseases and the establish- 
ment of proper quarantine regulations, the care and 
treatment of all sick animals, the operation of veteri- 
nary hospitals, the investigation of the cause and cure 
of equine diseases, and the keeping of records. An- 
other important duty of the corps in France was the 
prompt evacuation of all wounded animals in order 
that they might not hinder the mobility of the troops 
or engage the attention of the men. In order to facili- 
tate the evacuation of sick and wounded animals from 
the Zone of the Advance, 21 veterinary hospital or- 



MENDERS OF MEN 467 

ganizations — each consisting of 7 officers and 300 men, 
and each having a capacity of 1,000 sick animals — were 
trained, organized, and sent overseas. There were 
also sent to France 2 base veterinary hospitals with a 
capacity of 500 animals each. Besides this, every can- 
tonment in the United States had its own veterinary 
hospital, varying in capacity from 200 to 600 animals 
each. As a result of the scientific methods of sanita- 
tion and treatment introduced by the Veterinary Corps, 
the mortahty among animals was enormously reduced 
(in the early days of the war the British estimated that 
the average life of a horse in France was only sixteen 
days), thousands of disabled horses which in former 
wars would have been shot were evacuated, mended, 
and sent back to the front for further service, and mil- 
lions of dollars were saved to the American taxpayer. 

Even more important than its care of the animals 
of the army was the work of the Veterinary Corps in 
protecting the men by guarding the purity of their 
meat and dairy supplies. The activities of the Meat 
and Dairy Inspection Service include the inspection of 
meats purchased for the use of the army at the time 
of their receipt, while in storage, and upon issue to 
troops; inspection of storehouses, refrigerators, and 
methods of operation in handling food therein; inspec- 
tion of slaughter-houses, butcher-shops, and packing- 
houses; ante-mortem and post-mortem inspection for 
soundness and suitability for human food of animals 
slaughtered; inspection of cows and dairies providing 
milk, butter, and cheese for the use of the troops. 



468 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

Some conception of the extent and importance of the 
work of the Meat Inspection Service can be had by re- 
membering that when the war ended, the Packing- 
House Products Branch of the Office of the Director of 
Purchase and Storage was purchasing for the use of 
the army an average of from 15,000,000 to 19,000,000 
pounds of meat products weekly. And every carcass, 
if not every pound, had to be inspected and passed by 
the Veterinary Corps before it reached the mess-tables 
of the army. That, in spite of the incredible quantities 
of meat products which had to be purchased for the use 
of our forces in the field, and the great distances be- 
tween the abattoirs and the zone of operations, there 
was no repetition of the " embalmed-beef " scandal 
which sullied the history of the war with Spain was due 
to the efficiency and unremitting vigilance of the men 
who wore on their collars the insignia of the Veterinary 
Corps. 

I am perfectly aware that the medical officers who 
do me the honor to read this chapter wiU criticise me 
for the omissions I have made. And such criticism is 
justified. I have dismissed such important phases of 
the work of the Medical Corps as the Division of 
Surgery with a few paragraphs; to the Dental Corps 
and the Nurse Corps I have been able to devote but a 
few lines; the Sanitary Corps, the Ambulance Service, 
and a score of other branches I have merely mentioned. 
Of the marvellous work performed by our medical offi- 
cers in plastic surgery, in bone grafting, in the disinfec- 



MENDERS OF MEN 469 

tion of wounds, in orthopedics, in the treatment of 
the blind, the shell-shocked, and the insane, I have 
written nothing — the subject is too great, the space at 
my disposal too limited to even attempt it. The most 
that I can hope to do in the limits of a single chapter 
is to give my readers the same fleeting, cursory view of 
the achievements of the Medical Department that one 
obtains of a countryside from an airplane. 

If America's losses in the greatest of wars were 
relatively slight — and they were slight when compared 
with the appalling casualties suffered by most of the 
other warring nations — the reason is not to be found in 
the superiority of American strategy, in the ability of 
American commanders, or in the excellence of Ameri- 
can weapons, but in the efficiency, self-sacrifice, and 
devotion of the officers, nurses, and men who wore the 
caduceus of the Army Medical Department. And I 
know whereof I speak, for I have not only visited 
French, British, Belgian, Italian, even German, hos- 
pitals all the way from La Panne to Montfalcone, thus 
affording me standards of comparison, but I spent 
nearly three months in an American hospital on the 
Marne, I came home on an American hospital-ship, and 
for nearly three months more I was under the care of 
army medical officers in the United States. In dress- 
ing-stations, field, camp, base, debarkation, and general 
hospitals I have watched the Medical Department at 
its work, and the first-hand knowledge thus gained 
gives me the right to assert that it was the most efficient 



470 THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

service of its kind possessed by any army. To its 
officers and men, and to the devoted women of the Army 
Nurse Corps, I lift my hat in gratitude and admiration. 
The American Army and the American people owe them 
a debt which they can never fully pay. 



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